"Extravagantly"

I've written about how much I love this song many a time, but I just want to reiterate the beautiful message that it provides. Give all that you have to others, heart and soul, time and compassion. Love people bigger than you humanly can, and it will expand your heart and capacity to put others first. It is more fulfilling to give love than it is to receive it. If you're not sure what it means to love or how to do it, read this:

The Way of Love

 ¹ If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. ^3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

   Love never gives up.
   Love cares more for others than for self.
   Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
   Love doesn't strut,
   Doesn't have a swelled head,
   Doesn't force itself on others,
   Isn't always "me first,"
   Doesn't fly off the handle,
   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
   Doesn't revel when others grovel,
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
   Puts up with anything,
   Trusts God always,
   Always looks for the best,
   Never looks back,
   But keeps going to the end. ^8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
 ¹¹When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
 ¹²We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
 ¹³But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
(1 Corinthians 13 from The Message)




**Sidenote: If someone says they love you, but their actions don't line up with the above definition, it's time to re-evaluate your relationship. I write this because I want you to live well and understand that joy is attainable, despite the ups and downs of life. You deserve to find the peace that God provides in exchange for our acceptance that we're not in control of life. So breathe in the truth and let freedom renew you. Let the unpredictability of life pleasantly surprise you and bring you real love, not the store-bought kind.




From my heart to yours,
Kristen