Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:8

As I was making Valentine cards for those I am privileged to love, my heart filled to overflowing with the blessing of having ones to love. It really comes down to seeing the giving of love as thrilling as the getting of it. As I put aside thoughts that try to trouble me, 'what-if's' that want to distract me, let us look at what some others have said about this amazing grace, a thing called love.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." -Jesus
"Without love, the poor and rich man live in the same house."-unknown
"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." Ustinov
"Love is the condition in which the happiness of the other person is essential to your own. -Moore
"Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world."-Dyer
"Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place."-unknown
Love doesn't make the world go around. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile."

"A bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it.
Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay,

Love isn't love 'til you give it away." -Oscar Hammerstein

"Love is not love which alters when if alteration finds." -Shakespeare
"There is no greater spectacle than a beautiful woman cooking dinner for someone
she loves."
"I never knew how to worship until I learned how to love." Henry Ward Beecham
"Love is the greatest touch up artist of all." -Braun (ever grateful for that!)
"I love you not only for what you are, but what I am when I am with you." -Browning
"To illustrate the power of love is to set a candle in the sun."
"Hell is to no longer love."
"Love, like death, levels all ranks and lays the shepherd's crook beside the king's scepter."

My advice for the day? Fall in love with love, it never fails!
ever grateful for that!

When your hands are tied

"How reasonable to trust ourselves, our children, to infinite love, infinite wisdom and infinite power."
Have your hands ever been tied by total inability to change something that your heart screams to change? As I seek the Lord for comfort and assurance that HIS hands are never unable to move in behalf of those I love, I am prompted to remember....remember how He has never failed us. Like David, I cry "why are you cast down, oh my soul?" I know the answer. I am cast down today because my child walks around with a broken heart and I have a "fix-it" idol that has met its match. I cannot fix it. I cannot make her circumstances go away. I cannot even tell her they will go away.
We find ourselves in that place we have never wanted to find ourselves in. The place is called "helplessness." It is amazing how seldom I have visited this dreaded place. In my self-centered world where I can tweek most everything a bit to make it more comfortable for me, God, in His love and wisdom, has brought me to a place of complete and utter dependence upon Him.
I have no answers. I have no advice. I have no power. He reminded me today thru a dear friend to never look upon anything without looking at it through the filter of the cross. The cross is the final and ultimate proof of God's love. So, I remember His love. I remember His unfailing love and wait upon Him. He will do for me and my beloved family what we cannot do for ourselves.

Enter like a little child

Oh, precious carefree childhood! When Jesus said you enter the Kingdom of Heaven like a little child, I am just beginning to understand what He means. Children believe, children trust, children accept, children play, children don't hold grudges, children don't worry about tomorrow.

While on a retreat last weekend, a mother told the story about her little boy in his car seat asking when he was going to Heaven. "Not anytime soon," the mother explained. "Jesus is in Heaven making a wonderful home just for you, and when it is ready He will come and get you."
Her son replied, "Do you know what I'm gonna do until Jesus comes and gets me? I'm just gonna play."

Wow! Could we believe like that, entrusting all our cares to Him, and just be? Do we dare try to enjoy this journey down here, leaving all the big stuff to Him ? Could we, like little children, do whatever He asks without having to know all the why's of it all, go wherever He leads without always having to know ahead of time every step of the journey, how long it will take, and what the final destination is? Could we, with child-like faith, put our heads on our pillows tonight not fretting over what tomorrow will hold, how we might hurt, how much faith we will need, how we might fail? The answer is yes, we can. It takes deeply knowing who our Father is and how dearly He loves us.
That is the gospel, trusting God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves and believing HE WILL!
Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children." Matthew 11:25
ever grateful for that!