February: The Month of LOVE

Last year I started a tradition with  my crew to get us talking about what Love really is... and isn't.  It went really well and started some great conversations with my children.  So we are doing it again with a few new ideas.

Yesterday the girls and I colored in this huge heart drawn on a piece of posterboard.  I wrote Jesus is Love across the heart with a sharpie marker.  I taped it to the window in our kitchen, where our family spends most of our time together.  This past fall I attended a women's retreat where the speaker had us read 1 Corinthians 13 out loud together.  But first she explained that the Bible teaches that God is not just loving, He IS love.  And so as we read the passage we subsituted the word "love" with the word "Jesus".  It was powerful and I wanted that to be our focus this month.

So after the boys got home from school, we read 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7:

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. 

We talked about what it means that Jesus IS love, what love is, and what love is not.  I had both of the boys write their thoughts on paper hearts, cut out of construction paper.  Some of their ideas were straight from the Bible passage we had just read and some where their own ideas.  One of the suggestions, "Love is Happiness".   And in my heart I knew this was exactly why I do this with  my kids.  

I want them to know that we can only love because God first loved us.  I want the truth that we must first soak in Christ before we can ever pour His love back out.  I want them to understand that on our own our love always fails, but God's love NEVER does.  We need His love to be able to love others.  That Love does not equal happiness.  That sometimes love means making the choice to love even when it is not easy and does not make us "happy".  

My challenge is great.  The society where my children are growing up teaches them that love DOES equal happiness.  It screams that love is only a feeling and that once the feeling is gone it is time to move on.  It teaches that love should be easy and if it gets hard then it is time to bail.  But I desire so much more for my children.  I want them to experience that peace that comes from honoring your commitments above your feelings.  I want them to enjoy the blessings of choosing to stay with the wife of their youth and the mother of their children.  And I want this knowledge to be so ingrained in their DNA that the thought to do otherwise would never be an option.   I pray for not  just because it is my desire for them, but it is also God's desire for all of us.  

We will pick a heart each day.  Read what it says.  Talk about what is means.  And then tape it to the heart to be reminded all month.  We are also going to read 1John 4 together everyday .  This passage teaches us that God is Love.  Our prayer is that somewhere in the midst of all the red and pink, the hearts and candy, the love notes and poems.... you will taste His love and see that it is Good.