Love is a choice...

Valentine's Day is only a few days away.

And while it is a celebration of love, somehow the "holiday" often falls flat. The type of love that is glorified in the world is self-serving and cheapens the kind of love celebrated in the Bible.

image courtesy graur codrin freedigitalphotos.net

After almost 13 years of marriage my husband and I understand that 

love isn't an emotion...

it's a choice.

Love is saying, "I want what is best for you, even if I get nothing from it." 

Love involves dying to yourself and serving...even when you'd really rather not. 

Love is loving even when the person is being un-loveable or unlovely.

Love covers wrongs and helps us to forgive -

even when we don't want to.

The Bible says it best in 1 Corinthians 13.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have ^(A)prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, ^(B)so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ^3 (C)If I give away all I have, and ^(D)if I deliver up my body to be burned,^[a]but have not love, I gain nothing.

 ^4 (E)Love is patient and ^(F)kind; love ^(G)does not envy or boast; it ^(H)is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It ^(I)does not insist on its own way; it ^(J)is not irritable or resentful;^[b] 6 it ^(K)does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but ^(L)rejoices with the truth. ^7 (M)Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, ^(N)endures all things.

 ⁸ Love never ends.

Amen!

That is the kind of love that is worth celebrating!

Find more encouragement here:
Time-Warp Wife
Growing Home
Hip Homeschool Hop

Who am I?

I wear a lot of hats. You probably do too...

I am a wife to Brian, mother to 3 beautiful children, daughter, sister, friend...to name a few.

But who am I really?

For way too many years, I spent more effort than I should have trying to figure all that out.

Somehow I bought into the lie that if I poured myself into the lives of others I would lose myself...

I made the mistake of thinking that my life was essentially all about me...

and I was lonely and sad and unfulfilled. 

I began to think that perhaps I just wasn't "cut out" to be a full time mom and homemaker. All I needed was something else, something more would certainly fill the longing in my heart...

At my lowest point, I scanned the help wanted ads secretly after my husband went to work. I was willing to give up being at home to seek personal fulfillment. But none of the jobs seemed to be what I wanted. And I cried out to God in my frustration,

What do you want from me?

What do you want me to be?

God answered me, and I heard it as clearly as if he spoke out loud:

I want you to be mine.

image courtesy of graur razvan ionut freedigitalphotos.net

At that moment, I saw my attempts in a new light... I was not seeking to find myself, I was seeking fulfillment in something other than Christ. My motivation was not nearly as altruistic as I had lied myself into believing...I was NOT seeking to be a better mother to Precious Girl by being "fulfilled". I was being selfish and it was ugly.

You see, who I am is really not that important. On my own strength I am frail and often unable or even unwilling...

But Jesus is all-sufficient. 

And when I allow my life to be an outpouring of his love for me, I am willing...I am able...I am much more than I could ever be on my own.

Who I am is not so important after all...

Knowing WHOSE I am makes all the difference.

Linking Up:

These Five of Mine Plus Two

Liturgical Time