During February there is a theme of all things red heart love. There are flowers, chocolates and paper cards proclaiming all sorts of messages about love. It is so everyday dish water that no one even blinks at the notion of love any more. We say it to and about everything. I love those shoes. I love cheeseburgers. I love_____. You fill it in and you see what I mean. Real love is nothing like the watered down version that we see in our lives today. Society has misconstrued the reality of love that when we see real love, experience real love in action, we distrust it.
Real love is not always pretty. It is the holding of hair as your child hangs over a toilet. It is the hand holding as your friend looses her job. It is the 2 am call when your brother is out and too drunk to drive. Love is giving a homeless man your last dollar and no caring if he buys a beer or a cheeseburger. Love is the sighs of peace in the arms of your mate. It is waking up as he shakes the bed in a nightmare and comforting his daemons quiet. Love is reliable, steadfast and true.
In all things let love be your motive. Let love guide you actions. Let love season your words, even the difficult ones.
~Lori O’Gara
“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.”
1 Corinthians 13: 1-3 (MSG)
Brendan & Lori O'Gara 