The Greatest Illness Needs the Greatest Too – Stuart Segall

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“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love.” — Mother Teresa

For someone like me, who moves through the world with a reflective spirit and a reverence for presence, this quote feels like a call to ritual: to notice the invisible hunger in others, to offer warmth not as a transaction but as a sacrament. It reminds me that love, simple, attentive, unearned, can be the most radical medicine. I knew this before, but I truly learned it from my own fall and brokenness many years ago.

The other day, I met a man at my health club whom I had seen for years. I would say hi to him regularly, and for a long time, I would get only a grunt or a faint smile. I saw how hard he worked out, so I began praising what I saw. I did this for several years.

Recently, I told him that when I encourage him sincerely, I am not trying to sell magazine subscriptions or Girl Scout cookies. It is just genuine encouragement. He stopped, pulled me aside, and told me how broken and quiet he had been since his traumatic youth. He said he had always appreciated being recognized, but could not find the words to respond.

“I go to work as a laborer, come here and work out for a few hours, go home and watch TV or read, and go to bed. I have continued this cycle my whole life.”

He looked like a tough guy, and his responses had always matched that exterior. But I looked beyond. He shared more, with a tear, thanked me, and told me I was the first person he had spoken to in years outside of a therapist. As he said goodbye, he added:

“I hope we can talk again. It felt good.”

That quote from Mother Teresa is a quiet, distant thunderclap, gentle in tone, but seismic in truth. It re-frames suffering not as something distant or clinical, but as something deeply relational. In her eyes, the most devastating affliction is not physical decay, but emotional abandonment. And the remedy is not complex. It is love, freely given.

“I was sick and you visited me…” — Matthew 25:36 Mental health issues are a sickness not to be overlooked here. There is so much brokenness, anxiety, and depression all over the land

This verse is nestled within a larger teaching where Christ identifies himself with “the least of these,” the hungry, the stranger, the imprisoned. The message is clear. Every act of mercy toward another is an act of love toward the divine.

Contributing to many of the resources offered by Plain Truth Ministries, including the CWRblog, Stuart Segall writes from the state of Washington.  He has spent most of his adult life counseling, encouraging, inspiring and uplifting others.