Nathan and I took a trip to Austria and Poland by ourselves when he was 15 and cherished our memories forever burnished in our souls.
"An aching, longing pulses beneath, where no one can see. As the body requires food to stay alive, so the depths of a child hungers for love in order to stay alive. Love that embraces, validates, affirms, whispers, "
Charles W. Bartlett
"Just as you are, I adore you. You delight me. I think about you, I cherish the day your were born. You are my beloved and always will be, no matter what."
Your Mama
Each of us was crafted with a soul container that would be filled with love. Though no one can see from the outside whether ours is empty, desolate or full to overflowing, each of us has the capacity to fill up another's cavern with words, touch, sacrifice, generous gifts. When full, we are most likely to understand and worship God as a God of love because we have felt love, heard love, tasted love in our world of reality.
Without that filling, we will search for it all of our lives, even in the wrong places--places that promise to give love and fill hearts, but steal and destroy instead.
But a mother's love is one of the most constant resources of God's love that can sustain, strengthen, heal and restore a child.
Over 500 times, He speaks to us of love.....
God is love.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
If you have not love, you have become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
They will know you are my disciples by your love for one another.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Let us remember,
Love moves, inspires, shapes the dreams, gives hope, holds us for eternity--for heaven.
Every child, every grown child, needs, exists well when love is given.
It is our heritage, our duty, our service of gratitude. Love is the oxygen of our soul which keeps us alive.
When we, by faith, invest love in others, our own souls become full of His love--we pour out, He pours in.
Why do I focus on God's love and grace so much? Because Love is the source of all life, it is Him reincarnated through us. Love fuels faith and hope and inspires to overcome..
Love is the fuel that causes a baby to grow strong, love gives strength to the heart of a child learning true foundations of life, love carries teens through years of self-doubt to adulthood with the memory of having been cherished through mysterious years.
I have read the introductions to two books this week. Two grown men, famous in their own arenas. Both wrote of the anger of their father, that still stings, still holds them in bondage, still darkens the memory of childhood soul. It ought not to be the legacy we leave.
Peter, the one Jesus believed in and forgave, reminds us:
Love covers a multitude of sin.
Proverbs: it is to a man's honor to overlook a sin.
Paul speaks of it: Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
And so I speak of love--the acting out of love which brings light to darkness, satisfaction to a starving heart, comfort to a lonely soul, sympathy to hurt feelings, Love never fails. May our love muscles grow stronger and stronger until we see Him, Love incarnate, face to face.
Do you want to know how to love well? Read Different and be inspired.