So This is Love

Hmmm...so like many of you, you may have noticed that we just finished the shortest month of the year.  Yet for this year for me it was packed with so much.
This is the month that we get to celebrate love.  Not like we shouldn't celebrate it every month, but this month is especially set aside for it.
Now, many of you have probably heard me declare that if I had known how much I was going to love Valentines Day I would have gotten married on that day.  I do love Valentines Day. 
I really don't know why.  I love chocolate and candy hearts and some would think that is why, but no that is not it.  I love the sentimental little cards.  The ones that come in boxes and have the cute little kids and sayings on them, even more so when I come across vintage ones from someones childhood, they bring a tear to my eyes, but again, that is not why I love Valentines Day.
So I asked myself, "Why?"  The best answer I can come up with is because it represents and reminds us of love.  Albeit it is more the physical attraction kind of love but I look at it as more of what love should be.
So I got to thinking, what is love?  What does it look like?  What does it sound like?  I am such a blessed person, I didn't have far to look.  The answers are where I always look.  The Bible.
So since February is the month that represents love I looked to the chapter in the bible that represents love.  We all know it, some of us could probably recite it. 1st Corinthians 13.
I had recently heard someone preach on it so I thought I would try to see if I could understand it better myself.
I wanted to measure myself against this chapter.  I really did not want to use the measuring stick against myself but I want to be a person that is known to love everyone and I know that I fall short in this.  Not that I don't love them but I realize that sometimes I am doing things for people because it is the right thing to do and not necessarily out of love.
So I went to the book and where I could I put my name there.  This is what it looks like.
Though Darla talks as if she knows the word of God, but she doesn't have love, she is just a loud noise.  And even if Darla has the gift of prophecy, she understands the mysteries of the Word of God, and has faith that is unshakable, so much so that she could pray for the sick and move mountains, if she does not have love then what's the point.  And what if Darla gave all that she had to feed the poor and needy, and she gave her body to be burned, but there was no love in it, then she lost everything, it did her no good. 
(Love)Darla suffers long, she puts up with a lot of people that could easily annoy her, Darla is kind to everyone, Darla is not jealous if you get something she doesn't have, in fact Darla thinks you deserve it, Darla does not have a highly inflated ego where she thinks she is the greatest thing since sliced bread, thinking herself to be something she is not.  Darla does not treat people rudely, she is very accommodating, Darla does not have to have her way all the time, Darla does not loose her temper easily, Darla does not think mean thoughts towards people or situations, Darla does not think it is okay that people sin, it breaks her heart, Darla is glad when she hears a sinner has come to know God as their personal savior.
Darla holds people up and defends them, Darla believes the best about people and is saddened when proven wrong, Darla endures a lot, she keeps on keeping on even though it gets hard at times and it would be easier to just move to the wayside.
Darla never fails, messes up, gets things wrong, hurts peoples feelings.  Prophecies may fail, they can be proven wrong, or God's heart can be moved to do something different, tongues can be wrong, false, twisted, wisdom and knowledge may not always be what we thought it to be, the world is no longer thought to be flat after all.
Darla knows some things, very little, and can prophecy or predict what she has understanding of, but it is limited.
But when Darla gets to heaven all will be revealed to her, she will have her eyes and her heart opened to all the wonderful things that she could not figure out here on earth.  She will have a clearer picture of what God was trying to do when He took her through trials and tribulations and she did not know why.
When Darla was a young christian she spoke and acted like a young christian, she grew a little and the Word of God grew in her and she began to realize that she needed to become more of what the Word of God was and said.
Darla would read the Word and seek Godly council on it but sometimes she still couldn't fathom what God was trying to tell her, she could not wrap her brain around it.  But one day she will stand before God and He will reveal His heart to her. 
But for now while Darla is still on this earth she has faith, hope and love to keep her company, to walk with, but out of the three, the greatest one that she needs to practice in her life is love.
When I go back and interject my name into this chapter, this epiphany of love, I find myself lacking.  Not because I want to but because I just do.
I want to walk in love.  I want to talk in love.  I want to act, respond and do out of love.  I want God's love to flow through me onto others.
I can go through the word of God and find so many times where He tells us to love.
Be kind one to another. Ephesians 4:32
Be imitators of Christ.  Walk in love as Christ also loved us.  Ephesians 5:1-2
Beloved let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone that love is born of God and knows God.  1st John 4:7
Beloved if God so loved us we ought to love one another. 1st John 4:11
If someone says I love God and hates his brother he is a liar.  Gods commandment is he who loves God must also love his brother.  1st John 4:20-21
Jesus said, "As the Father loved me, I have loved you.  Abide, dwell, stay inside my love.  If you keep my commandments you will dwell in my love, just as I have kept my Fathers commandments and dwell in His love.  I tell you these things so that you will have my joy and that it would remain in you and your joy would be full. John 15:9-12
So this is love that you keep His commandments, that you show kindness to others and then you will know His joy, His peace, the perfect peace that passes all understanding.
Oh that everything I do be done in love.
I would want to walk and move and speak in His love so that when others look at me they no longer see Darla but they would be able to to say of me, "So this is love.!"
I double dog, no triple dog dare you to put your name in this chapter and let God speak to your heart and let everything that you do be done in love. 
May the love of God abound in you dear friends, may the love of God abound in you.