Greater Love

I think I have been taught so much, “don’t nurture the wrong things” that I may miss the things I need to naturally nurture. Time with self–always important. Time with God–that is priority. Time with church, work, family and friends. And trying to manage all that can even be exhausting. Then I open and read today:

Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family.
Proverbs 27:10

I think I forsake that a lot. Especially when there are very few that do care more than I think. Today I had the opportunity mid-week to do nothing but show up. I went back to work after taking a few days off and I wish I could have rested more. Responsibilities kick in but it is nice to have an opportunity to bask in the favor from family and friends.

Thank you.

Sat outside. 80 degree weather. Nice breeze. Great home cooked meal. Chatter and laughs. That is good for a change. Something different, something needed, something worthwhile.

The bible also tells us in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

That is a beautiful commandment. In an effort to keep busy during a difficult time I cook, clean and serve. Now I had the opportunity for someone to do that for me. How appreciative I am. That’s nice… real nice.

I can still hear the words run through my mind, “Remember…now it’s all about the living…we need to focus on this concept.” When things die around you and inside it is so easy to forget that concept. I know I have to focus on the things in front of me and how I can make a difference.

In “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis it is stated:

“The death of a beloved is an amputation.”

“Love does not create and then annihilate.”

“The greater the love, the greater the grief.”

That all makes sense. A lot of sense. I am processing all of that. The greatest pains in life are from what you have loved the most. You suffer much. Time seems lost and endless. It is like an amputation. A huge cut… razor sharp. I wanna bounce back but I don’t want to carry the pain too.

Focus on this concept…. 

Look at the ones around you. Acknowledge the ones that care. They go out of their way to demonstrate that. It is a part of a greater love, not sentimental gush. It is there in existence. Observe, take note, acknowledge, appreciate and embrace. Some things may not be what we can imagine as the utmost, but what God places before us as wholesome is ours for the taking. That is a greater love. He demonstrated that to us and has placed in us the ability to emanate that too.

If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing. This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails. Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything.
It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.
1 Corinthians 13:1-8 Phillips Translation