and the greatest of these...

I'm trying to teach madilynn about love.

we talked a few weeks ago about feelings and emotions and so i thought that it was appropriate to share with her that despite what the world might say, love does not fall into this same category with our sadness, happiness, anger etc..

this is hard to explain to a five year old.

in her mind she can not understand how it is possible to be angry at her brother and still love him at the same time.

its a hard concept even for most adults.

when i taught high school bible at hillcrest i taught my kids that the definition of love meant making yourself vulnerable to pain. they thought that i was a super emo crazy person who did not understand love. how could something that they associated so closely with all the butterflies and happy feelings they felt fit in anyway with my definition?

in preparation for talking to madilynn i was watching the brandon heath video for his love never fails song. i have heard it on the radio but for some reason watching the images and seeing the lyrics as he sang, it really hit home. 1 cor 13 is probably simultaneously one of the single most important and hardest chapters in all of the Bible.

i have laughed lately at my little one year old's joys in his discovery of being upside down. he can not get up on my lap now that he does not immediately take a dive backwards of of my lap letting his long blond curls touch the floor as he squeals with delight. madilynn and ben usually get in on the act too. they flip over off the side of the couch and as the blood rushes to their heads they all laugh and laugh at the sight of each other turned in this peculiar way.

i have thought what is it about being upside down that is so appealing? the rush of blood, the fear of falling, the strangeness of seeing others completely opposite of how you normally see them.

it has struck me that the same is true for love. real love.

carrie bradshaw in the final episode of sex and the city tells the russian "i am someone who is looking for love. real love. ridiculous. inconvenient. consuming. cant live without each other love." i have clung to that statement these last few years but as i think on it now, i think that even that proclamation falls short.

sometimes you do live without, and yet you still love.

i remember my sweet mimi telling me as she watched our dandy, her tony, slip away that you would think after fifty seven years with him that would be enough, but still she felt she needed more time. she tells me every time i see her now that even after all these years that he has been gone, she dreams of him. sometimes you do live without, and yet you still love.

i remember the tears in my sweet daddy dukes eyes as he gave me my mamal's ring and said that when the nurse told him she would go and remove the jewelry from her body, he politely told her that he was the one who put those rings on her sweet fingers and he would be the one to take them off. i have only worn that ring once. to a wedding a few summers ago. sometimes you live without, and yet you still love.

daddy talked in his sermon on sunday about a friend he knows who recently ran into the man who his wife had had an affair with. the man who had been like his brother. the man who he had laughed with. who he had cried with. who he had hated. daddy said when he heard the news that the two had run into each other for the first time since the affair happened and since his wife had left him he braced himself for what he was about to hear. what words had been exchanged? had punches even been thrown?
what he heard instead turned his world upside down. his friend had walked up to the man whom the world would have called his enemy, put his arms around him and said, "brother, i just want you to know that i still love you."

how can you explain love to a five year old? i guess the best way is to show it.to try to live it out everyday. otherwise, even if you memorize 1 cor 13, they are still just words. and isn't that what the passage is trying to say, afterall?

i think the only reason that daddy's friend was able to do what he did is because love has been lived out so clearly in his own life. by his parents. by his grandparents. by his Lord.

isn't that after all what we always say Christ did? turn the world upside down with his love. love for the prostitutes, the beggars, the outcasts, the sinners.

i can only imagine that as peter took a timid dive off the side of that boat toward Jesus the blood must have rushed to his head. the fear of falling must have been unbelievable. strange and surreal and thrilling and terrifying, all at the same time. but as long as he kept his eyes on his Lord, he walked on the water. i know that the experience that day and the rest of his days with (and without) the Lord changed him. Turned his whole world upside down. i am struck by the thought that he died, by choice, in this same manner.

what is love?

am i qualified to teach anyone about it?

maybe not, but Lord help me, I'm trying to live it out daily.

Brandon Heath--
Love Never Fails :
Love is not proud
Love does not boast
Love after all
Matters the most

Love does not run
Love does not hide
Love does not keep
Locked inside

Love is the river that flows through
Love never fails you

Love will sustain
Love will provide
Love will not cease
At the end of time

Love will protect
Love always hopes
Love still believes
When you don’t

Love is the arms that are holding you
Love never fails you

When my heart won’t make a sound
When I can’t turn back around
When the sky is falling down
Nothing is greater than this
Greater than this

Love is right here
Love is alive
Love is the way
The truth the life

Love is the river than flows through
Love is the arms that are holding you
Love is the place you will fly to
Love never fails you