Let It Be Love...
I had originally just wanted to open this blog post with one verse, 1 Corinthians 13:13, but before I did, I took the time to take a step back and look at the entire chapter. It's so good and so applicable to how I'm feeling that I'm going to share it in its entirety:
"If I speak in the tongues of me and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy going or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So know faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13 ESV (emphasis mine)
If you just read the last verse, you might think love is pretty important, after all, it's called the greatest. But if you back up and read the entire passage, you may start to realize just how big, how amazing love is.
I'm blessed to be surrounded by those who have been loved, who choose to love, who, when faced with the question of how to deal with the struggles of this world say, "let it be love."
This past weekend, one of the beautiful little girls that I met at an orphanage during my first trip to Haiti passed away. I can still faintly see in my mind's eye Emmanuella's tiny little body, laying on a pallet of blankets and pillows as I talked to her and stroked her arms. She would make tiny little bubbles of spit and her nanny had explained that was how she responds to people. Her birth family, overwhelmed by her severely handicapped body in a impoverished land had given up on her, and the orphanage had taken her in. The nannies there chose to love and care for that little girl. People in another country chose to love and give money so she could receive the care she needed. Others chose to love and lift her name in prayer. Still fewer chose to love and make it their life's work to create a home where this little girl could find a place to rest, to be fed and clothes. Love comes in so many different forms, but each one made such a difference in that one small life. Could you imagine what that little girl's life would have been without all those people?
Right now, we have friends that are sitting on the other side of the world, getting to know their two new sons. One they will welcome into their temporary home in the next day, the other is hospitalized, his body ill and struggling. This morning, their mother listed a lengthy set of care instructions that she has been learning from her son's nurses, things she will have to do that are a little scary and overwhelming. And yet, she and her husband will do each one, they will fight to get the best care for this child because they chose to love.
Another friend sits in a court room, once more, for another hearing regarding her littlest foster child. She's driven miles and sat through supervised parental visits, unannounced home visits, court dates, paperwork because she and her husband chose to love.
Such love is huge and powerful and life-changing, but it requires so much time and resources and energy, and it is firmly rooted in lives that know the real source of such love is a God that chose to love them abundantly and provides what they need to let that same love spill out on those around them.
This love brings me to tears! It is so beautiful and precious and I am so very thankful and blessed to get to see such a thing.
May we all choose to find a way to let our lives be love.
"If I speak in the tongues of me and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy going or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So know faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13 ESV (emphasis mine)
If you just read the last verse, you might think love is pretty important, after all, it's called the greatest. But if you back up and read the entire passage, you may start to realize just how big, how amazing love is.
I'm blessed to be surrounded by those who have been loved, who choose to love, who, when faced with the question of how to deal with the struggles of this world say, "let it be love."
(Source of Photo)
Right now, we have friends that are sitting on the other side of the world, getting to know their two new sons. One they will welcome into their temporary home in the next day, the other is hospitalized, his body ill and struggling. This morning, their mother listed a lengthy set of care instructions that she has been learning from her son's nurses, things she will have to do that are a little scary and overwhelming. And yet, she and her husband will do each one, they will fight to get the best care for this child because they chose to love.
Another friend sits in a court room, once more, for another hearing regarding her littlest foster child. She's driven miles and sat through supervised parental visits, unannounced home visits, court dates, paperwork because she and her husband chose to love.
Such love is huge and powerful and life-changing, but it requires so much time and resources and energy, and it is firmly rooted in lives that know the real source of such love is a God that chose to love them abundantly and provides what they need to let that same love spill out on those around them.
This love brings me to tears! It is so beautiful and precious and I am so very thankful and blessed to get to see such a thing.
May we all choose to find a way to let our lives be love.
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