If I may challenge your memory, I would like to remind my readers of the assignment to count the number of times the word love or loved appeared in my referenced passage last week. Also, I would like to correct reference to the word “lease” as should have read “least” as one reader commented last week. Thanks for the edit. My message this week again is all about love.
In order to write about love, I am constantly reminded of the one person who love me in spite of myself. She was my mother. I hope all of you had a chance this week to travel into the depths of your memories to enjoy those times you felt your mother’s love. I suspect if your mother was like mine, sometimes it was a hard love to teach me a lesson. I remember being so hard headed that I was convinced I should wear my football uniform to school as I thought the coach had required. Wrong! My mother tried to persuade me until finally I had to learn the hard way. This is one of my most embarrassing memories. My mother showed some hard love but backed it up with her soft love as she followed the bus to school with a fresh change of proper school clothes. I can laugh about it now but then was devastated. Can you remember memories of your actions as a child or young adult where your mother showed unconditional love? To me, it is all about love whether hard or soft or just being present to pick us up when we fell. What greater love is that?
1 John 5:1 reminds me of grand parents, who loves the child born to the parent. I suppose that is what makes those of us who are blessed to be grand parents so appreciative of our parents, especially our mothers. What we thought was hurtful actions preventing us from being ourselves are now in our memories as actions of love to teach us how to live. If we love Jesus, God loves us and our memories of His commandments serve as our weapons against this cruel world. Jesus even encapsulated all of God’s commandments into one commandment to love each other just as he loved us, as written in John 15:12.
I attended a funeral the other day of a loved Grand and Great Grand Mother and the memories flowed like water through our eyes and hearts. None of us are perfect except in our mother’s eyes. So as we grow and our actions turn into memories for our children and grand children, may we consider the foundation of love in all that we do.
T