Respond with Love

I promise... at some point I will get back to my regularly schedule blog. But tonight, I wanted to talk about something that's been on my mind lately; loving people when you don't want to love them.

This is something that I struggle with all the time. I'm not talking about loving G when he's grating my nerves or loving my brother when he's being a brat. No, I'm talking about loving the people that were put in my life to challenge me. My inclination has always been to lash out and break them. I've not always been the best of people. :-/ But as I challenge myself to be more loving, I'm also learning how to respond.

Yesterday on the way home, I was listening to Air1 and the DJ was talking about how even when we argue with someone, we need to do it with love. He sited 1 Corinthians 11:1-3.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. (NLT) 

Several instances have come up recently, and I'm ashamed to admit that I did not handle them all with the grace and love they deserved. And another one happened today, but God had prepared me with this verse. I knew I needed to respond in love, but I could not figure out how. After a lot of meditation on those verses, I realized that the most loving thing for me to do is to not respond at all. 

Well, that's one day down. Now to remember it all tomorrow.

Someone I love

Here we are on day 6 of the Photo Challenge! Today's subject is someone I love. That's not much of a challenge, now is it?

I'm a little partial to Mr. Wonderful, himself. I feel like these pictures pretty accurately represent why I picked him. 

1. He's magic! His friend competes in Strongman competitions, and he was playing around with one of the weighted balls. Really, I'm just impressed with the fact that he is willing to try new things with his workouts and really cares about his health and fitness.
2. He's a model! This one was taken when he was asked to to a charity fashion show. He was making a Zoolander face, but I think he actually looks really handsome. I love the fact that he's always willing to help out and he looks good doing it. :-)
3. We have fun together! This one was taken while we were waiting to go to our seats at the Tennessee Theatre. Not only does he take me to the theatre, he makes goofy faces with me beforehand!

Of course there's more than 3 reasons why I love G, but these are just some of the reasons I have picture evidence for. ;-)

Scripture Hearts

Every Monday night I go to a bible study with some of the women from my church. Since tonight was the Monday before Valentine's Day, I decided I would make them a little something. I went back and forth, and finally decided to keep it simple and make scripture hearts.

I typed different verses into the out line of a heart (I Google searched for a heart outline I liked). I found my verses by doing a search for bible verses about love. Now, I know that the bible talks a lot about love, so picked out 14 of my favorites that talked about loving God and/or loving one another. Here are the ones I used:

1. But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. Psalm 13:5
2. But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love, for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble. Psalm 59:16
3. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17
4. A new command I give you: Love on another. As I have loved you, so you must also love one another. But this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:34-35
5. Owe no one anything except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8
6. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Romans 13:9
7. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:10
8. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13
9. Do everything in love. 1 Corinthians 16:14
10. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
11. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:14
12. Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18
13. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has be born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7
14. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. the one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:18-19

You can kind of tell I was camped out in Romans 13 yesterday. Oh well! I picked 14 because there are 13 women (including me) in my small group, and I wanted to have extras in case we had any guests. In hindsight, this could also be used as a biblical Valentine's advent. 

After I got them to look how I wanted, I printed them on red cardstock, cut them out, and put a magnet on the back. The ladies in my group really liked them. And I liked them because it was quick and simple!

*My heart outlines were a little faint upon printing, but that was okay with me because it meant no one would notice if my cutting was a little off. :-)
*The font I used was called "A Gentle Touch" and can be found here.