Love transforms...

I am sitting here with a blank computer screen waiting to be filled with words.  Sometimes words are ready to tumble out of my brain falling onto each other.  This morning I am contemplating LOV's monthly theme -LOVE- and I am just sitting here pondering just what to write about.

Love has been the muse of poets and painters throughout the ages.  Do we ever get tired of love?  Can the books to fill all of the book shelves in the world express all that there is to say about love?

Love transforms.  He takes a vile murderer and removes the evil. 

Love washes the perverse white as snow.

Love touches the tongue of the liar and cauterizes the member with fire.

Love elevates a life to have eternal purpose.

Love gives passion with a continual flame.
 
What does Love do to you TODAY? 
Is Love transforming you?
Is Love adding purpose to your days of mundane routines and dreams not yet realized?

Ponder on LOVE.

"Love is enough, though the world is awaning."

~William Morris (1872)





God is Love.  Is Love enough for you today?

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Brushing His Hair

I am learning much these days- 22 credits full of the Tudor lineage of the British monarchy, symbolic analysis of Keats' poems, what is a poly carp, the painting techniques of Lorenzetti, and how to calculate a Cartesian product.  I love it.  I love learning and I can feel my brain cells growing fat and the synapses stronger.

This morning these words shouted at me as though in big, bold red letters-
"...as for knowledge, it will pass away.....but LOVE never ends."

All of the reading, studying, and harboring of knowledge -Knowledge WILL PASS away. What is left?  Only LOVE.

And then in His Providence, I was led to read this story.  I have read it before and it still brings tears to my eyes.....Oh, the great, great Love of Jesus!  So simple, so pure.  So upside down in this world.   Read on  and you will understand what I mean.

For those of you who do not know Beth Moore, she is an outstanding Bible teacher, writer of Bible studies, and is a married mother of two daughters. This is one of her experiences: April 20, 2005, at the Airport in Knoxville.
 
     I was waiting to board the plane, I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I'd had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say this because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you. You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons, not the least of which is your ego.
     I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt.. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones. The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long, clean but strangely out of place on an old man. I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face.
     As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered that he was dead. So this man in the airport... An impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere? There I sat; trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served up on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while, my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him. Let's admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man.
     I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I've learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing. I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. 'Oh, no, God, please, no.' I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, 'Don't make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I'll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but don't make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!' There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, 'Please don't make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it on the plane.' Then I heard it...'I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair.' The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top.
     Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No-brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, 'God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man. I'm on this Lord. I'm your girl! ;You've never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am going to witness to this man.' Again, as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. 'That is not what I said, Beth. I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair.' I looked up at God and quipped, 'I don't have a hairbrush. It's in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hairbrush?' God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: 'I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works.' (2 Timothy 3:17)

     Are you kidding? Of course I didn't want to. But God didn't seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, 'Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush.' 'I have one in my bag,' he responded. I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on, hardly believing what I was doing.
     I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don't do many things well, but must admit I've had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls. Like I'd done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull.   
  A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man's hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair I know this sounds so strange, but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I - for that few minutes - felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while. The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's. His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's.
     I slipped the brush back in the bag and went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knee and said, 'Sir, do you know my Jesus?' He said, 'Yes, I do' Well, that figures, I thought. He explained, 'I've known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior.' He said, 'You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride.'
    
     Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.
     I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, 'That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?' I said, 'Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!' And we got to share.

     I learned something about God that day. He knows if you're exhausted, you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you're hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need! I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way... all because I didn't want people to think I was strange.
      God didn't send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me. Please share this wonderful story. 'Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain!

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We All Want To Get Flowers

Many of you will be receiving flowers tomorrow from the man in your life as a symbol of his love for you.

Many of you will not receive flowers -and will probably be pining that you didn't.   We are women.  We want our loved one to acknowledge US, to tell us that we matter to them.  We want pretty petals to look at, to remind us that we are loved.  Nothing says it more deeply than the velvety petals of the rose.

Do any of you watch the television show "The Middle?"  The episode this week showed the Heck couple dining out with friends.  A flower lady approached their table and asked each husband if he would like to buy a rose for the love of his life. The husbands of the two other couples purchased the lovely single rose and in handling the love token to their wives, received the crowds, "Aaaaahs."  Mike Heck simply continued his monologue and dismissed the flower lady with a "No, thank you."  Frankie (his wife) is left flowerless and grabs a bread stick to munch on while her two friends gaze at the velvety petals.  The next morning Mike is awakened by a very upset Frankie who berates him, "Why didn't you buy me a flower?"  He replies, "I thought we agreed that that is a scam and that flowers are a waste of money?"  "Yes,of course it is.  But I still wanted a rose!!"

Doesn't that speak for the woman in all of us?  I know for me it does.  Yes, Hallmark is making millions from the propaganda of your love.  So is the flower industry, and diamond.  We KNOW that it is propaganda.  But don't we still want the flowers?

How will YOU react if your hubby comes home empty handed Tuesday evening?

Can you get over your disappointment?

In twenty years of a marriage relationship, I would like to think that I have grown and learned something.  There have been a few Valentine's that I went flowerless.  I have been disappointed. I have cried.  I have yelled . . . And I have learned to not depend on my husband so much for fulfillment and happiness.  My husband will be away this Valentine's Day.  He is working 2,000 miles from our front door.  That speaks his love to me.  He will not be able to bring me flowers.  I knew that.  So when I saw this beautiful bouquet at Sam's Club -I bought them for myself.  And I love to see them open more each day.

The other day my daughters and I made cookies.  I tried out the new cookie mold I had bought for the purpose of making heart-shaped coolies for Valentine's Day.  Making my husband's favorite, chocolate chip, I filled the mold.  The cookie turned out perfectly.  I took a picture of the tasty treat with my phone and sent it to my husband with the message, "Here is your Valentine's gift.  I guess we will have to eat it for you."  I also sent him a picture of the flowers with the message, "Here are the flowers you bought me, thank you."

He replied, "Bon appetit.  And I hope that you like the flowers."

We both smiled inside.

It is freedom to know that I can buy myself flowers....and enjoy them.

Can you?

Have a Valentine's Day filled with joy and love.

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Love~ Begin with Him

Today is February the first -yeah!  I love the beginning a new month.  The cold winds of January are blowing away and the red brightness of February is turned onto our calendars.  It is the month we celebrate LOVE.  So we shall this month, as LOVE becomes the topic of LOV. (:  All posts that you read here will center on that theme.

And where is the best place to start except at the One who is LOVE.  Have you ever stopped to contemplate that?  Well, as much as our finite little brains can take it in.  God IS love. (1John 4:8)  He cannot act out of love, as that would be out of His character.  Every move He makes on your behalf, dear sister, in an act of love toward you.  Yes, even the trials, even the hardships and heartaches, the discipline, and sorrows that we experience in the few moments that our blossom blooms in this temporal garden. He works all things for our GOOD, even the worms that would eat our tender petals.  He loves us.

This love is embodied in the Person of Jesus Christ.  Have you looked upon Him lately?  He beckons you to Himself to be wrapped in His arms of love.

"We love because He first loved us."

~1John 4:19

What powerful words.  It is not in us to love.  We simply do not have the ability in our natural beings.  But, oh, when we allow His love to flow through us!  He is able to release a deluge that soaks all who are near us.  We become a fountain of Living Waters.

Let the Waters flow over your heart and through your soul.  No matter your burden, it is lighter when it floats on waters of Love.

Swim in it.  Meditate on it.  Pray to know the breadth and height and depth of this great expanse of Love.  It is limitless, because He is boundless.

And after being soaked, let's celebrate it this month.

Will you join me? 



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