What Love is

From a college essay Lindsey wrote:
A year after graduation I learned what love is while living in Quito, Ecuador for three months working in orphanages. One particular experience was a major paradigm shift in my life. It was late one night when another volunteer and I were trying to get ten babies at the orphanage to fall asleep. For one reason or another they were all crying and not sleeping. We were trying all that we could do to calm them down but it was a wild night.
Finally we decided to sing church songs. I knelt down between two cribs holding two small hands in mine and began the song “I see my mother kneeling, with her family each day…” As I sang tears filled my eyes as I realized how blessed I was just to have a family. Then I looked into the faces of those babies and felt so much love for them as I realized that at that moment I was the only person, besides God, who cared or was even thinking about those babies at that time. I felt humbled, and realized the important responsibility it was to care for those children. I learned to appreciate my own family so much more and my hearts capacity to love expanded largely. This experience also instilled a great desire within me to give service where possible and to look for ways to show compassion.