What Love Really Means

I saw love this week. Love in action, demonstrating its true definition.

Love is patient and kind

      I was sick at the beginning of the week. The gross, ugly kind of sick that nobody wants to be around. My husband, Nathanael, took care of me with such patience and kindness I almost wanted to cry with gratefulness. He brought me things to drink, to try to eat, and medicine to take; he went to the store and bought possibly all of the Gatorade and Powerade on the shelves; he said yes to my crazy requests without hesitation, such as making up a very comfy bed for me on the bathroom floor so that I wouldn’t have to move much.

Love bears all things and endures all things

      Wherever he was in the house, as soon as he heard me start retching in the bathroom he would come stand next to me and rub my back. Rather than spare himself the repulsive assault on his senses, he chose to do whatever he could to try to make me feel better. I still felt sick and awful, but I felt so loved.

Love is not arrogant or rude.

      When I started getting dizzy either from dehydration or my heart racing from anxiety, he decided to take me to the ER to get some fluids and medicine in me since my stomach refused to let these things take up residence. As soon as we walked in the doors of the hospital I sat down and threw up in the bathroom trash can we’d brought with us. He sat with me in my humble state and waited for me to be ready to move again. He showed no signs of mortification at how gross I was in public. Without being asked, he carried the offensive bucket around until there was a place to clean it out.

Love is not irritable or resentful; Love does not insist on its own way

      We got to the ER around 11pm. We were there until about 2:15am. He had to be at work the next morning by 8:30, but he didn’t complain about being up so late a single time. At one point when I asked what time it was, he said, “Don’t worry about it.” He wasn’t concerned for himself and his need to sleep at all.

      When I was cold he took off his sweatshirt and added it on top of my blanket. When I was still cold he balanced himself lying next to me as well as he could on the narrow hospital bed to try to warm me up. I doubt he was able to rest like that, but he never complained.

Love never ends.

      Even when Nathanael also became sick early Monday morning and it was me trying to take care of him, he never stopped showing concern for how I felt. While we napped the day away, if I got out of bed or moved around a lot he would immediately wake up and ask, “Are you ok?”

He is so selfless. He is patient and kind and endures everything with such grace. He is not arrogant or rude or irritable or resentful. He never insists that things go his way. He loves whether I deserve it or not. He loves whether I am lovable or not.

I hope I can learn to love as truly as he does.

Verses excerpted from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Hidden Treasures in Isaiah

I was reading in Isaiah 16 and 17 this morning, totally on a whim, and about the time I found myself thinking "Why am I reading this, it's a big list of places I don't know and how they're going to be destroyed and struck with famine and stuff." Not exactly the encouragement in the Word I was hoping for this morning to stir me out of my sleepy, whiny state of being.

Then I got to 17:7-8, which says:
"In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense." (ESV)

I've never built an altar or Asherim, but I definitely do look to the works of my own hands. I rely on my own accomplishments. When something seems unfair I think, "But I did this," and point to what my own fingers have made, as if that should justify me and make the unfairness go away.

But in that day, which I think refers to the day of judgment because this section talks about the Lord sending famine and destruction on unrighteous cities, "man will look to his Maker."

I wonder why it doesn't say man will look to "the true God" or "the Savior" or some other name for God. His Maker... It's so basic.

As I'm typing this and pondering it more, it occurred to me that these verses aren't about idol worship, even though it mentions altars and Asherim (some sort of object related to idol worship back in the day), God's concern doesn't seem to be what we're worshiping in this instance. It's who made what, and where we're assigning credit. We make much of ourselves for our successes, such as carving something out of wood like in this verse, but God made that wood, and even better, He made you and me, the folks so often caught saying "hey look what I did!"

I'm reminded today to forget what I did or can do. Look what God did.

A few verses later it talks about people who have forgotten "the God of your salvation... the Rock of your refuge." Lord, I don't want to forget You. Keep my heart remembering who You are. You are my Maker, my Salvation, my Rock of refuge. Thank You for Your mercy, Father, and for the wonderful treasures You hide in Your Word, even in the middle of chapters that seem confusing or irrelevant.