70 Years

Today I have the pleasure of attending a celebration for a couple that have been married for 70 years.  They are two of the sweetest people I have ever known.  She is soft spoken, humble, and gracious.  I use to be her Sunday school teacher and she made the task so much easier just because of the countenance on her face as I would teach.  She has often talked with me about her love for her dear husband.  It has never failed to encourage me or inspire me.  I have seen her stand over him in ICU when she could hardly stand.  She held his hand and told him how much she loved him.  I have seen him walk her to Sunday school like a school boy who was courting a young lady.  Their marriage is something to celebrate.  They are one of the rare couples in this world that have weathered so much together yet after 70 years they are still in love, still each other's partner, and still friends.  What an encouragement to all that know them!!!

As I think about this I ask myself many questions:  Am I more in love with my husband today than ever?  Does he know by my actions that I love him?  Is he my friend and partner in this crazy world?  Do we work to make our marriage more and more what God wants it to be?If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

~~~I Corinthians 13~~~