Love Is...

The Way of Love

1 Corinthians 13: 1-8

The Message

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't LOVE,

I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God's Word with power,

revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day,

and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps,

but I don't LOVE, I'm nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to burned as a martyr,

but I don't LOVE, I've gotten nowhere.

So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do,

I'm bankrupt without LOVE.

LOVE never gives up.

LOVE cares more for others than for self.

LOVE doesn't want what it doesn't have.

LOVE:

 doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always, "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

LOVE:

Takes pleasures in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

LOVE never dies.

Today is/was Valentine's day.

My daddy brought me flowers to school.

We shared a moment.

I came home to beautiful roses from my husband.

Then the evening began.

It was spent with a daughter with a tummy ache,

four people trying to agree on where to go to dinner,

a tired and irritable mommy,

and then something changed all that.

As I was putting the loves in this passage in bold and capital letters,

Jason calls me to come downstairs.

I knew our friends had stopped over to give some paperwork to Jason.

I didn't think I needed to come down.

As I walk down the stairs I see the couple sitting at the table with Jason.

They've come to ask him to marry them this evening.

A day devoted to love, chosen to begin their lives together.

I'll be honest, at first I was a bit nervous.

You want to do what? right now?

Then Jason started sharing about marriage.

Mind you he wasn't exactly prepared for this moment.

But clearly God had ordained it, as the perfect words flowed from him.

Words to encourage, to build on, and remind them that God has to be the foundation.

Jason reads the same passage I had just finished typing.

He asks them to read it to each other putting themselves in the passage.

"I will never give up..."

I watched as they looked into each other's eyes.

It was evident that they love each other and were excited to become one in His eyes.

My Valentine's day ended as a witness to a new marriage beginning.

An incredible experience.

Intimate and personal.

Remembering that we love because He first loved us.

Finding the blessings,

Denise