OLD SOULS
There are some people who are born- Old Souls. Prophetically poignant personalities who inspire us- with a 
wisdom that takes most people a lifetime to understand. I met an Old Soul-a young child- at a refugee camp in Croatia. A little Muslim girl no more than 12- who disarmed me with her luminescent love for humanity. She lived in a small, sparsely furnished room that she shared with her mother and her sister... inside an old school building that had been turned into makeshift apartments...for countless families forced to flee their war ravaged towns and villages.
She told me her father and her brother had been killed in the war, her house had been bombed and her dreams of a carefree childhood- shattered. She didn't know if she would ever be able to return to her home, or if she would ever be able to see her relatives or her friends again. She had been living in this camp for weeks because she had nowhere else to go...and it looked like the war would never end. I asked this young girl- if she hated the people who tortured and killed her father and her brother...the ones responsible for destroying her world, for making her cry. But this brown eyed beauty-this Old Soul caught me by surprise. Looking me in the eye she gently spoke the words that continue to inspire me more than a decade later, "I only have love in my heart-I cannot help it." I think about her often when the people I love, are suffering, feeling hurt and betrayed... when life on life's terms--divorce, death, suicide, disease and heartache --seems too hard to handle-almost unbearable. I think of this Old Soul-this young girl who chose love over hate-and then I smile. Because Old Souls are gifts of grace...they are sent to us -to teach us, to inspire us and to tell us what we need to hear -even when we are not yet wise enough to understand it.
wisdom that takes most people a lifetime to understand. I met an Old Soul-a young child- at a refugee camp in Croatia. A little Muslim girl no more than 12- who disarmed me with her luminescent love for humanity. She lived in a small, sparsely furnished room that she shared with her mother and her sister... inside an old school building that had been turned into makeshift apartments...for countless families forced to flee their war ravaged towns and villages.She told me her father and her brother had been killed in the war, her house had been bombed and her dreams of a carefree childhood- shattered. She didn't know if she would ever be able to return to her home, or if she would ever be able to see her relatives or her friends again. She had been living in this camp for weeks because she had nowhere else to go...and it looked like the war would never end. I asked this young girl- if she hated the people who tortured and killed her father and her brother...the ones responsible for destroying her world, for making her cry. But this brown eyed beauty-this Old Soul caught me by surprise. Looking me in the eye she gently spoke the words that continue to inspire me more than a decade later, "I only have love in my heart-I cannot help it." I think about her often when the people I love, are suffering, feeling hurt and betrayed... when life on life's terms--divorce, death, suicide, disease and heartache --seems too hard to handle-almost unbearable. I think of this Old Soul-this young girl who chose love over hate-and then I smile. Because Old Souls are gifts of grace...they are sent to us -to teach us, to inspire us and to tell us what we need to hear -even when we are not yet wise enough to understand it.
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