Love in Action

My husband and I were recently informed that another precious family we know is ending in destruction. The parents absolutely cannot own their mistakes, forgive each other and walk in harmony together.

Whose fault it is… does not matter. There is usually fault on both sides. It’s irrelevant. Married couples throw in the towel like there will be no eternal consequences, with no thought to the vows they made TO GOD: for better or worse, for sickness and health, for richer or poorer…

Or …until it gets too hard.

True Christian love…

covers a multitude of sins.

No person is perfect.

We must learn to ask for forgiveness and to forgive!

Instead, rudeness dominates chipping away at walls; impatience tears down fortresses.

Pride mocks forgiveness.

Lying in bed the other night, talking in the dark with my husband, he rambled to the ceiling about how God designed families to be fortresses: safe places for people to find love, and comfort, and to grow in courage.

Yet, too many families today, instead, resemble destroyed, abandoned, dilapidated buildings with destructive fires burning in each room. No place for comfort, no place for love, no place anyone wants to be. Kids are confused, hurt, and crying out.

Don’t expect your loved ones to NEVER FAIL. Practice forgiveness and work together towards a beautiful life. When you are old and grey with millions of memories: good, bad, and ugly; you will be glad you stayed faithful to your vows and finished victoriously.

So this month I am intensely working with our kids to own their mistakes, ask forgiveness, give forgiveness and walk in reconciliation with all family members. Join me by memorizing the love chapter and live it among those closest to you. It’s worth it to work it out.

1 Corinthians 13

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 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. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 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 the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a 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.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.