This is from one of the messages that comes to my email daily. It touched my heart, so I wanted to share with you all....
HUMAN TOUCH HAS A powerful ability to calm and comfort. A California Ophthalmologist has added what he considers a significant new advancement to routine eye surgery. He has asked Margaret Pickford to hold his patients' hands during their operations.
In the eye surgery, a local anesthetic is used, so patients are conscious. This procedure can be very frightening because they can't see and are not supposed to either move or talk. Having a hand to hold relaxes them. It also lowers their blood pressure and heart rate.
"Some people," Margaret explains, "particularly men, don't want the support at first. But they usually end up squeezing so tightly I think my hand's going to come off at the wrist! Doctors may be experts in their fields, but they haven't had the surgery. That's where I have the expertise."
Margaret, a retired schoolteacher, has had cataract surgery. And she has held the hands of about two thousand patients. The doctor says he rarely operates on anyone without Margaret. She isn't paid for her contribution--she explains that she is doing her part to "keep medical costs down."
- Point To Ponder -
Human touch is so important that it can be a matter of life and death to infants. Babies die unless arms embrace them and hands caress them. Our busy, high-tech world sometimes removes opportunities for tenderness and nonsexual affection, and we have to make an extra effort to demonstrate our caring. Although we are to turn to God with our needs, God has not chosen to be physically present in the world at this time. And when we need to experience the love of God "with skin on," we have to rely on each other to provide the warmth, gentleness, and nurturing human beings so desperately need.

Hope