The frog feeling comes when you want to be bright – but you feel dull. You want to share – but feel selfish. You want to be thankful – but you feel indifferent. Who hasn’t felt that way at some point in their life?

You find yourself all alone, floating in a large pond on a lily pad with life passing you by. You don’t like yourself much. You feel ugly and unloved. You have no sense of purpose or direction to your life. Your close relationships are at rock bottom – life is not much fun. You feel frightened, disgusted with yourself, pooped and poopy – just too sluggish to budge.

But you and I know what happened next in the fable. A beautiful young maiden came along and kissed the frog. Now I ask you – when have you ever seen a beautiful young woman kiss a slimy, green old frog? Most people won’t touch one much less kiss it. But the young maiden knew something you and I often fail to recognise. Inside that ugly old frog was trapped a handsome young prince.

The same is true of every human being who feels like a frog. There is human potential just waiting to be released. And it may be as simple as another human being coming along and recognising the spiritual pain a person is in and experiencing – a pain which sentences many people to years of feeling low self-esteem, no sense of purpose to life, relationships to self and others in a terrible state – and recognising the full potential of the person feeling this way – realising that every person is created in the image and love of the Creator and is just waiting to be kissed so they can be released from the bondage of feeling like a frog.

So what is THE TASK of caring for people? ……………… TO KISS FROGS – OF COURSE!

Spiritual Pain – Jean Varnier