A handwritten note. A home cooked meal. A gentle voice. A prayer spoken. It’s an anonymous blessing, a purposeful act. It is filled with good intention.

Love is a back rub. It’s a task checked off your list by someone else, so you can step a little lighter. It’s a reminder that everything is going to be ok. It’s not easily contained.

Love weathers the unexpected. Is tireless. Fearless. Limitless. It induces hope.

Love is a nursing mother in the middle of the night. It’s a hard working father, providing for his family. It’s a child, clamoring to learn anything that will bring a smile, draw attention, result in praise. It is ingrained in us, and either nurtured in us or squelched in us from before we even enter the world.

Love might be a sacrifice of time, energy, resources, comfort, familiarity, belongings, words, hurt, addiction, quiet, space, basic needs, or temporary gratification. It is almost always a sacrifice of self, almost always calls us to a better version of ourselves than we’ve been before.

Love seeks justice, truth, forgiveness, reconciliation, restitution, resolution when possible, peace. It does not always seek equality, nor does it compromise Truth for the sake of making things easier or more comfortable. Love faces the hard things head on. Love leans on Truth in order that others might know it more deeply. Love never gives up.

Love is what you’re able to summon from your heart when you know who the world’s greatest Love is and when you accept what He made available for all of humankind. For that weird guy across the street. For the prisoner. For the prostitute. For the downcast and the outcast and the unloveable. For you.

LOVE is a four letter word, yes. And it’s something we celebrate on February 14th each year. But before and after it is these things or anything else, it is Christ on a cross, dying in my place–in your place, for sins He never committed, so that we might live in freedom through Him.

Love doesn’t just win, folks. Love IS. Alive, available, something you don’t have to wait for to possess. You only have to say yes to the greatest proposal in the history of creation. God is romancing each of us, if only we let Him.

love. today and every day,

mm