I realize this post is coming out late today, but if I get it out before midnight then I’ve kept my end of the bargain! 🙂 I usually try to write the day (or at the very latest, night) before, but yesterday was a pretty full day for me. Since the day is almost done, I won’t keep you long.
After spending the day yesterday sitting in a sea of my daddy’s famed baseball caps, I stopped to prepare for an evening out. Last night, I got all “dolled” up to attend a special pastor’s appreciation banquet with my honey. The attire was formal, and I was SO excited! I’d found the perfect dress, and I couldn’t wait for him to see it. Would you believe I’ve never been to a formal event (outside participating in a debutante cotillion my junior year in high school)? It’s true! That means I’ve definitely never been to a formal event with a DATE! When my sweetheart learned this little fact about me he went all out. We looked quite nice! He says I’m biased, so I’ll let you be the judge. 🙂
Anyhoo, as I reminisce on the lovely weekend and contemplate what to write about today, love is the winner by a landslide.
Confession: It is only by God’s grace that I’m alive to share the stories from seasons of my life where I sorely lacked wisdom in the area of love. If you think “alive to share” is an exaggerated phrase…well, just keep hanging out with me here… And again, you can be the judge. 🙂
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve learned (mostly by trials and MANY errors) to rely on scripture’s description of love to patiently feed me the wisdom I so desperately need in this area, especially when it comes to my interaction with our beloved opposite sex. One of the most amazing lessons I’ve learned thus far is that, if you are a willing and attentive student, love will teach you all you need to know about itself.
So tonight (and please note I finished this post BEFORE my midnight curfew, lol) or tomorrow or whenever you read this, if you are so inclined, I invite you to begin studying of love in the same place I began:
1 Corinthians 13:1-8 NASB – If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 – If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 – And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4 – Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 – does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 – does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 – bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 – Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
Love completely,
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I agree Monica, you two look very nice together. May the love continue bloom.
I’ve learned and continue to learn so much from 1 corinthians 13. In the past few years it has truly helped me to discern when something I thought was love really wasn’t. Our guide is always the word of God.
Monica, you look fabulous! Our pastor commented on this passage from 1 Corinthians this past Sunday, and I was convicted anew at the idea that “love is not provoked” or, easily angered as the NIV says. How many times have I snapped at someone I love? Yikes. Thank you for sharing this post!
Thank you, Becky! That passage is truly amazing. I look back on relationships that I truly thought were love. In hindsight I recall the manner in which I was treated and understand how I was so sadly mistaken. The lessons are amazing, though.