Kendall the Fire

“LOVE.”

Sometimes, genuine love is in short supply.   

A pastor once share with me this story… “I was traveling in the Midwest when a woman came to me with a little girl at her side. This woman had a cast on her arm and some scars on the side of her face that showed me that she had been in an accident. She shared that she had been in the hospital because of a very serious fire. There were burns over two-thirds of her body. Then, she shared how her husband had walked into the hospital room, took one look at her and said, ‘You’re not the woman I married.’ He walked out of the room and out of our marriage.”  

The pastor summed up the attitude of the man like this, “As long as you stimulate me, as long as I can be proud of you, as long as you’re beautiful, I can love you. If you change, my love for you changes.”  Sad, but too often that is the nature of human love. I think there is a famine of compassion and unselfish, lasting, growing, true love among human beings. Often, it’s because of the egotistical desire to have our “rights” protected. But Edith Schaeffer once commented.  “In the midst of the famine, a true reality of living in the light of the first commandment would bring an outpouring of an endless supply of love.” 

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second (commandment) is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” ~ Mark 12:30-31

May it start with me. (Would you consider giving it a try, too?)