Dear Church Family –

 It’s February. The month for love…or at least the month that the greeting card industry would like for you to think of as the month of love. When I think about love in the context of Bible reading my mind goes to 1 Corinthians 13 – the “love chapter.” I am sure you have heard it at weddings, or maybe it was read at your wedding.

 1 If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may glory, but do not have love, it does me no good. 4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know in part and prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 Ok. Here is where we get real. Is your love patient and kind? Is it not braggy or arrogant? I sure wish I could say yes…but I fear those who I love could tell you that I have many times been less than patient with them and certainly done things that were not real kind. Now before you call family services and have them come check us out…I don’t mean it happens every day. But it DOES happen.

 Also, I think this chapter (written by Paul, a single, tent maker who is also an Old Testament scholar) is about more than the love we share in marriage. How about our love for others? I mean, it is easy for me to love people I like, who think like me, who I have something in common with. But what about those who I don’t like? Don’t have much in common with? Or have very different opinions from? Does this mean I have to LOVE them too???

 And what about my love for God? Is my love real, sincere and pure? Or is it centered on self and what God has ‘done for me lately?’ Do I love God with my whole heart every day or just when it is convenient or when I “need” Him? I think God wants it all. My whole heart. My whole being. My whole life. Everything.

 The best part about God’s love is that even when I am unlovable…God loves me. His love is perfect. Pure and it never fails. When you think about Valentine’s think about love…but let’s make it about more than flowers and hearts. Let’s really love the way God created us to.

 In His love and service,

Kathy Hull