A Love Game–It’s Valentine’s Day After All

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A Valentine’s Day love game.  One of these scenarios is not like the other.  Can you tell which one?

Love is patient…

Jeanne was a good woman who married Bill when they were just kids.  They had a Jewish wedding.  Three weeks after they were married, Bill stole money from the firm where he was employed as an hourly clerk.  The boss gave him a second chance, told him about grace and Jesus.  Bill accepted that truth, and it was that same grace that sustained him through Jeanne’s bout with cancer fifty years later.  Bill told me that love was patient and I  believed him.

Love is kind…

Amber had every reason to destroy her husband.  The infidel burned midnight oil, hopping from one porn site to the next.  She caught him red-handed, had considered turning tail and running.  Instead, she chose the quieter path.  She prayed hard, spoke little, and loved well.  She encouraged the Holy Spirit in him.  He’d later say that it was her kindness that led him to repentance.

It does not dishonor others…

There was a church in Metropolis, a big one with fancy flat televisions and such.  They were a winsome,  handsome lot, and they produced some high-quality hipster music.  Jessica visited that church once, decided to breast feed under the cross, under a Hooter Hider–come just as you are and all of that.  The folks didn’t take to kindly to that, asked her three times to “move along because, after all, we have a very posh mother’s room with closed circuit televisions.”  Shame masked in a southern drawl doesn’t make it any more palatable.  Sometimes, judgment is what it is. Jessica left in tears.

It keeps no record of wrongs…

Marilyn was an alcoholic, burned through a half year’s wages in hooch and blackjack.  When James found out, he packed her into the station wagon and drove her to the rehab facility.  He spent another half year’s wages cleaning Marilyn out.  When she came home, she said she was sorry, wondered if they’d be able to put bread on the table.  ”East to west, Marilyn,” he said.  Then, he pulled two rib-eyes out of the freezer to thaw.

Always trust…

Darryl was a methodist minister who’d done a stint in Cummings for grand theft.  He’d found Jesus and gotten baptized  in his second year.  When he made parole, he found a job as an assistant at the First Methodist church their in Gap City.  Once, Darryl asked the preacher why he’d given him the opportunity.  ”I reckon we’re all thieves,” the preacher said.

Always perseveres…

They sat alone in the dark, huddled naked under the covers.  ”Will you be there when the hospice workers lay me down?” she asked.  ”Yes,” he said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

***
Did you find the outlier?

As Christ followers,  it’s the character and richness of our love that proves our authenticity.  Have you committed yourself to a Christ-sized love today?  Do you live a love that eschews appearances, that runs deep and wide? Are you part of a local body that loves well, stem to stern?

Tagged as: breast feeding, kind, love, no record of wrongs, patient, perserverance