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Verse:All the special gifts and powers from God will someday come to an end, but love goes on forever. Someday prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge —these gifts will disappear. Now we know so little. … But when we have been made perfect and complete, then the need for these inadequate special gifts will come to an end, and they will disappear. It’s like this: when I was a child I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. … Now I have put away the childish things. In the same way, we can see and understand only a little about God now, as if we were peering at his reflection in a poor mirror; but someday we are going to see him in his completeness, face-to-face. Now all that I know is hazy and blurred, but then I will see everything clearly, just as clearly as God sees into my heart right now. There are three things that remain —faith, hope, and love— and the greatest of these is love. —1 Corinthians 13:8–13, TLB
At a recent health-related church mission conference, author David Brooks, who wrote The Road to Character, shared the story of a widower who told his daughter about the love he had shared with his wife (her mother).
Remembering his wife, the widower described their love as being like two trees with roots growing deep and branches flowering profusely.
And one day they realized they were not two trees but one.
Dig deeply into love, and see roots growing down and becoming entwined. Botanists tell us that trees with shallow roots cannot withstand the windstorms above the surface. Love thrives, and connections strengthen.
Love, well-grounded, withstands all.
Three virtues remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of the three is love. Mutual love, rooted and grounded in selflessness and other-centeredness, thrives, becoming one. Two trunks, visible to all. Exuberant and extravagant are the flowers. Roots, entwined, nourish each other. Love so glorious, for all to see.
Two trunks; one tree. This is love.
Bless my home with love that flows from You.
Prudence LaBeach Pollard