An act of true kindness.

In one of my regular e-mails - that have been sadly neglected over recent days - is the following report:

As Israeli soldiers continue with the military operation [Operation Brother's Keeper] in Judea and Samaria following the abduction of three Israeli teens, Israeli doctors of Save a Child's Heart (SACH) continue to save the lives of Palestinian children at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon.

Since the beginning of Operation Brother's Keeper, three Palestinian children have undergone life-saving heart surgery at Wolfson, eight Palestinian children were admitted, including two urgent cases brought by ambulances from Judea and Samaria and from Gaza, two children from the West Bank will undergo open heart surgery today at the hospital and fifteen children are expected to arrive today to the SACH free weekly cardiology clinic for Palestinian children.

The Israeli medical team of SACH is determined to continue with their activity without letting the situation around interfere or influence them. "Children are children"' says Dr. Lior Sasson, SACH chief surgeon, "for us it doesn't matter where the children come from, every child deserves to receive the best medical treatment and children. from both sides, should't be a part of the conflict".

Before entering the operating room this morning, Dr. Sasson said " We are continuing with our work, this is what distinguishes us as Israelis, the ability to ignore what is happening around and continue with our sacred work of saving children's lives".

This is, surely, an act of true kindness.  It is further evidence as to who are the real problem in the Middle East - and it is not the people of the modern state of Israel!  However, the title I typed in, a few minutes ago, was An act of grace.  There is, indeed, a sense in which that did not require the change that I then made.  So why did I make it?  Well, in my book Great Words of the Faith, there is a chapter on that word as well!  In that chapter, I use the well-known acronym: God's Riches At Christ's Expense.  That is true grace.  It is Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of all that is, Who is purity and sinlessness and, above all, love in His very Being providing, through the sacrifice of God the Son at Calvary, all that He is, to sinful creatures like you and me.  

I don't know how those Palestinian children, and their families, respond to the care and expert treatment that they receive at the hands of Israeli medical staff.  I do know that the only way to respond to the grace of God, in Christ, is to submit to His Lordship in our lives.

I've done that  - have you?