Love and other Beautiful Things

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love. 

(it has taken me almost 22 years to even begin to comprehend the weight of this chapter...)

LOVE.

I spent 19 years afraid of it,
1 year convinced I'd found it,
another year running from anything that resembled it,
maybe this year I'll just live in it...

We love people differently, and sometimes we love the same person differently at different times. At some point, we learn that those we love most are the ones we sometimes let go, the ones we let decide for themselves if they love us as well, the ones we let walk away from our tears,
because we have to love them right.
This right kind of love, well it's unconditional. It isn't bothered by what he said he would do, or what she said that night she was really upset, it isn't worried about how silly it looks when it cheers for the other, and it doesn't think about what everyone else is saying. Instead it just is. It's there, whether it's across the street or 1,000 miles away. It is calm, it does not fear, it does not snap,
and it does not bend on one very simple thing...
it will never, ever, give up.

No, love is not always given the credit it deserves, and those who love the most often have the least power in a relationship. The one who loves deepest is usually the one who feels the most pain. The one who loves fully often knows what it means to feel the sting of betrayal sharpest.
In the words of a very wise mentor and friend of mine... "I think that's how Christ feels every time we choose something over Him. Every time we tell Him that He alone is not enough."

So... if you are loving unconditionally... consider yourself in very excellent company and keep on doing it.

HOPE.
He's a very fickle thing,
one minute he is the strongest emotion 

and the next you wonder where he has fled to...

I think hope deserves more credit than it gets. It is the simple thing that says when the electricity goes out suddenly, it will come back on, it is the hope that even after all these years maybe you'll still meet your prince charming in the back of the store looking at tea mugs, or that your Pappy will suddenly remember you again.

Hope. it keeps us moving when we think we can't go any farther, and hope... well it's the last to go.

So hang on to hope.
Even if it's only a very little flicker.
Even if the light is dim.

Hope against all hope. 

Faith.

It is the thing that makes us believe in the wind,

not because we see it,

but because we experience its existence so often
and we know without it, the leaves wouldn't blow. 

Faith. We need to have a bit more of it in ourselves. Oh yes, we believe that someone up there is taking care of things, we recognize there is no way we'd be as creative, or that the stars would look so bright, without something greater than ourselves... but we doubt just how wonderful we are in his sight. 

We are so unable to believe that just maybe that creator deeply cares for us.

We just cannot fathom that WE are capable of great things.

Well, that is faith. Believing. Not only in a God that seriously delights in us, but in the fact that we were created for so much more than this. We are talented, beautiful, intelligent, successful, wonderful, amazing beings,
and it's time we start living like we actually believe that.

Faith, Hope, and Love... find the joy in beautiful things.