LOVE THAT ENDURES

Today is Valentine's Day.  Thousands of roses will be purchased along with tons of candy galore; many men will take their wives or their significant others out for a romantic dinner, and some will go as far as to purchase a diamond heart-shaped necklace for the lady they love.  That's nice!  We all need to feel "special" once in a while. 

But what about the day-to-day expressions of love?  What about those little acts of kindness, gentle touches, and sweet words?  Too many marriages and relationships grow cold quickly because they are not attended to....the spark is gone; the embers are barely warm; the fire has gone out!

Couples take each other for granted, get too wrapped up in "other things" and neglect comforting and cuddling one another.  Too tired and too distracted to give quality time to one another.

Next month my husband and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.  And we both can testify that "love suffers long but is [also] kind."    Yes--we've hurt one another and disappointed one another over the years, but we still are deeply in love.  Why?  Because we can say we're SORRY and because we both can FORGIVE!  We believe that "love endures"...we believe that marriage is a COVENANT (with God and with each other)--not a manmade contract!

Even Billy Graham's wife said this when asked if she ever considered divorce:  "Divorce?  No!  Murder, YES!"  I had a good laugh about that comment (but I understood where it came from).  The "enemy" will do anything to destroy a marriage!  He floods our minds with evil thoughts, but Mrs. Graham knew how to brush them out of her mind.

In the Greek, EROS love is all about sex and romance.  PHILEO love is a friendship love.  Both of these are "conditional" kinds of love.  But there's a 3rd kind of love--AGAPE love.  This is God's love, which is "unconditional." 

My husband and I have not (by a long-short) perfected AGAPE LOVE, but that's our AIM!  That's our TARGET!  We're far from hitting the BULLSEYE.....but we get closer and closer each and every year. 

LOVE...God's kind of love...never ends!  "Lovers Lane" can lead us all the way to "Heaven's Doorstep," if we walk with God all the way to our eternal home.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!  Share your love today!