WATCHWORD:
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. 1 Corinthians 13:8-1
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. Colossians 3:12-14
Meditation:
It’s been three months since the isolation began and some of us are still separated from our loved ones, even to the point of not having seen them except through the graces of Facetime, Zoom or our smart phones. A few of us have broken out of this quarantine, we balanced the risk against the reward of blessed fellowship.
I hope you have discovered, as I have, through all of this, that our love relationships have not changed. Maybe you observe that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I can’t disagree with that, but, then, I also believe that love is an absolute.
An absolute? Well, yes, I think it’s an absolute. I’m one of those romantics who believes that love never dies. Even death does not diminish it. Nor does it dim because of conflict. I also don’t believe there are differing shades love. I’ve never seen a movie where the protagonist might say, I have 47% love for you and I hope you share the same. Although that does sound a bit silly, and funny, or sad.
I do think there are gradients to a friendship. Some friendships are deeper, more longer-lasting, and never diminish even in the face of absence.
I have an old friend that resides in Wisconsin and Wyoming. I was 18 and he was 20 when we met during basic training in Missouri. We became closer friends during our Korean experience, and that friendship has only deepened over the years. Because of life experiences, he is nearly deaf, and because he is not tech savvy and does not own a computer, we neither talk on the phone nor use electronics. Yet those times when we do get together, it’s like we are just finishing a sentence that we started a moment before that in reality was two years ago. Do I love my friend? Darn right I do. I just finished a novel and one of the heroic, colorful characters is modeled after my friend, mustache and all.
God gifts us with friendship and love, and God’s gifts are always good, often for purposes that only He knows. How do you love from afar? How do you hold that one that you hold dear close when there’s a time and distance wall separating you?
I have a partner, adult children, grandkids, great grandkids, and friends, each of which I could describe the nature of the relationship, their character, shot through with love from beginning to end. Many are time and distance away. That makes it hard, but doesn’t change a thing. Love is love is love.
I could write an essay about each one of them, like this: She is a friend, a kid, a grandkid, beautiful as spring time in the mountains, unpredictable as Indiana weather, and talented far beyond anything that she would admit to. Often lost in her own thoughts, her own creativity, mysterious and complex. She has little time to waste on the silliness of games and songs. Yet, she is a completed masterpiece of God’s creativity on one hand, and, on the other, a blank canvas, unblemished, waiting to be created. How do you love from afar? Like that.
Each of us could make those same kind of statements, for what is described here is common, probably across the world. Missing loved ones is not unique, it’s a shared and often distressing state of affairs. But resting on the strength of our belief, we will get through this. We will come out the other end. Our contacts with the loved ones will be renewed, restored. We will learn that people have grown, changed a bit, have had their ups and downs; but we will also find that the love we had has been sustained, it’s weatherproof, it is time-proof. God’s grace, in action. Amen.
Stan
Bulletin Board:
Funny from Graham, et al. — A blonde teenager, wanting to earn some extra money for the summer, decided to hire herself out as a “handy-woman” She started canvassing a nearby well-to-do neighborhood. She went to the front door of the first house, and asked the owner if he had any odd jobs for her to do.
“Well, I guess I could use somebody to paint my porch,” he said, “How much will you charge me?” “Delighted, the girl quickly responded, “How about $50?”
The man agreed and told her that the paint brushes and everything she would need was in the garage. The man’s wife, hearing the conversation said, “Does she realize that our porch goes ALL the way around the house?”
Later that day, the blonde teenager came to the door to collect her money.
“You’re finished already?” the startled husband asked.
“Yes”, she replied, “and I even had paint left over, so I gave it two coats.”
Impressed, the man reached into his pocket for the $50.00 and handed it to her along with a $10.00 tip.
“And, by the way,” the teenager added as she left, “it’s not a Porch, it’s a Lexus.”
Closing Prayer:
Father, we come to You, confessing that we often have a heart that is filled with whining and complaining instead of gratitude. Please forgive us. Help us learn to see Your hand at work in our lives. We trust you even when we don’t understand our circumstances or Your movement within them. Instead, we choose to praise You, Lord, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
