Love went over the edge

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
—1 Corinthians 13:13

I was putting a shelf on the top of a built-in piece of furniture so we could display some of our collection of wooden ducks and loons. Cathy always places a large wood cutout word like FAITH. LOVE, HOPE up there as well. As I was setting up the shelf, LOVE went sliding towards the wall and slipped all the way down between the built-in and the wall. Impossible to get with any ease!

"Love just went over the edge!" I hollered to Cathy.

"Well, get it back will you?" she instructed.

Get love back! Isn’t that the desire of so many hearts? Some speak it out loud, others quietly pine, but all live out their hope of getting love back. Whether we know it or not the longings of our hearts all seek the real source of love. At many points in life’s journeys each of us want to get love back.
The love of which I speak is not necessarily the heart palpitating emotions of romance as important as they are, rather the deeper relationship of belonging trusting, knowing, and being known, accepted, and cherished. This kind of love calls for you to do more than follow emotional highs and lows. It calls for you to experience it as a decision, a principle, a value that you choose to honor even when you don’t feel like it. Choose acts of kindness and mercy in the face of anger or rejection, words of acceptance that challenges words of hate…that kind of love changes lives and the world.
Get love back!

Always enjoying a challenge I crafted a long extension tool and used the universal tool for difficult projects: duct tape! Peering down the seven foot gap, three inches wide, I saw LOVE. I tried for about 15 minutes and successfully got LOVE back. Would that it were so easy in life. But that’s not all.

Something happened while looking for LOVE! I also found, way down there, Cathy’s other word: FAITH.
Interesting that while looking for LOVE, I found FAITH!

Faith is more than believing. It is living a life that fully expressed that belief. Faith is love in action, not just thinking but doing.

In a few moments you will be caring for, working with patients, family members, physician partners, fellow employees each of whom, may be looking for that LOVE or that hope of FAITH.

Show them, won’t you, that LOVE and FAITH can both be experienced in your care!