love

Attending five funerals in 6 months has caused me to think deeply about what really matters.  It's made me hug my kids longer, say "I love you" more, ignore the petty stuff, and appreciate the small things that happen all day long.  Things like the sun shining on my flowers early in the morning, kind emails from people who love me, holding my sweetie's hand as we say good night, long talks with friends, a home that makes me smile, and people in it who mean everything to me.  People are so important.  My friends and family are precious and they are the only thing that really matters.  I have been reminded lately about how truly vital it is to make sure that the ones I love, know that I love them.  That means that I have to re-train myself to say "yes"  instead of "no"; to stop cleaning so I can hug; to give in to what's fun rather than the work that needs to be done; I'm working each day on my priorities. To love better. To love mostly. No clanging cymbals here, just real love.  I want it to be said of me... "She loved".   

1 Corinthians 13

 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.  If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. 

 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud  or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.  

 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!  Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.  Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.  All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.  

 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—

and the greatest of these is love.