To All My Single People – You Know Who You Are

Posted: Saturday, February 14, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: 2k15 | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

To my single friends on Valentine’s Day, especially the women who longingly desire to be in a relationship…to be married.

You know who you are. I see you. I hear you. We have chatted and cried together. We pray for that “special one” without ceasing. I understand. I was single, never married and lived alone until I was 45, when I married the “other half of my pair”. I see you. And I love you.

More importantly, THE LORD SEES YOU!!! You are loved with an everlasting love. But – to keep it real – that just doesn’t feel like enough sometimes. (Although it should – and then you feel guilty about it because it should and it doesn’t. Vicious cycle!!!) I’m not going to preach. Promise. I just want to share a few things.

I get that this can be the hardest day of the year for many of you. Today and wedding days. When you are thinking “Phew. Lord Jesus. Help me get through this day without punching someone.” You will be barraged with pictures of your friends and their spouses and boy/girlfriends receiving heart-shaped pancakes, balloons, and cookies, along with that box of chocolates and a gift certificate for a massage. You will read posts that ooze of sweet-nothing’s. You will see pictures of scrumptious food being served by candlelight in a lovely restaurant, unless he takes her to the candlelight dinner at Waffle House (yes… true story this year!!!) And I am sorry for the pain this may give you, as you long for Cupid to fly his arrow in your direction.  I see you, and I hear your pain.

Please – let me remind you – this is but one day out of 365. For many of these couples, the other 364 is a real struggle. For many couples, it’s a chance to play the ‘happy, loving couple’ for one day out of a year. Please don’t see the ‘fairy tale romance’ played out on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as reality. There is NO knight-in-shining-armor riding up on a beautiful horse. The struggle is real.

For the rest of the couples, yes… we are happy – most of the time. Being in a relationship is hard work; and I would be lying if I said there weren’t times that I thought – “Gosh, it was so much easier when I was single.” Please hear my heart, I love Louis to life (don’t like saying “to death”! LOL). There are just days that I think, “Phew. Lord Jesus. Help me not punch my husband today.” True. Story. Just ask him. (He laughed when I read this to him, because he knows it’s true.)

I am reminded of what Gary Thomas writes – What if being married was more about making you holy than making you happy. For me, a truer statement has never been uttered. When I was single and first read his book, Sacred Marriage, that line bounced off the page and hit me straight against my forehead. I even changed it to – what if relationships (as a whole) were designed to make you holy more than happy. I thought of many relationships that were challenging to me at that time. And then I thought – a lack of that special relationship was more about making me holy than making me happy. And then, I would remember His Promise…that all things work together for my good….as I struggled to trust God and his timing. If I went with my timing, I might very likely be married to a drug and alcohol addicted, neglectful husband with 13 kids hanging outside of a trailer.

But God.

All of that to say. I see you. And I think of and pray for you on days like today. You are loved. You are seen.

Scriptures on Love!

Posted: Friday, February 14, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2k14 | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on Scriptures on Love!

I love you balloons

As we think about Valentine’s Day, many are planning dinner, roses, chocolate, balloons, and other special things with their loved ones. Today, I spent time looking at what the Bible had to say about LOVE! There are soooo many verses on the topic.  Here are a few I thought I would share with you.

This was one I was really surprised to find.  I think it’s our new household verse! We share so many meals with people around our table. And, I find myself (sometimes) thinking too much about what we will serve. Trying new things. But, in the big scheme of things…it doesn’t matter what you are serving when you are surrounded with those you love.

Proverbs 15:17


A bowl of vegetables with someone you love is better than steak with someone you hate.

 Here’s another favorite.  So grateful for my biological family…and my family of friends!

Proverbs 17:17


A friend loves at all times, and a brother (or sister!!) is born for adversity.

Kinda funny gathering of things for the writer not to understand. I can think of so many more than 4.

Proverbs 30:18-19


There are three things that amaze me—
no, four things that I don’t understand:
  how an eagle glides through the sky,
  how a snake slithers on a rock, 
how a ship navigates the ocean,
 how a man loves a woman.

This is another one that I fell in love (pun intended) with today.

Romans 12:9-13

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Here are several that I grouped together.  The real love story.  The one that we are challenged to model our marriages after.  How Christ loved the church. He loved us enough to lay down his life for us. the best love story ever.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 15:13

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

1 John 3:16


This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers

And a few more really, really good ones.

1 Corinthians 13:4–8a


Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails …

Colossians 3:14


And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

1 Peter 4:8


Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1 John 4:8


Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Matthew 22:37–39


Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

 

1 Corinthians 13:1-3


If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1 John 4:16

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.