The rain has not stopped today, and there is a gray melancholy sky. Despite the dreariness, there is a joy about how green the world has turned, and America is still the land that I love. I see a mom and pop mallard duck couple floating down the ditch by the roadside, and there are flowers waiting patiently to shine their love into my front yard. I marvel at God’s creative heart, and I would like to paraphrase 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 (KJV), as I think on the three gifts God has given us: faith, hope, and love. I believe that all three have made my life worth living.
I am a clanging cymbal or a brazen trumpet when I speak like an arrogant person or like an angel wanting to be more important. This happens when I do not show love to others. I am nothing when I use my wisdom to undermine others or claim to have the ability to make changes when I do not. This happens when I do not have love in my heart. I gain nothing when I claim rewards for feeding the poor, giving them water to drink, offering shelter to them, or making sacrifices for them. This happens when I do these things for my own selfish needs and desires.
Love is a reliable source through all kinds of suffering, and it is kind to all. It is not jealous of others’ things or accomplishments, and it does not allow us to place ourselves above anyone else. We do not do loving acts for our own reputations, and we do not seek to do things just so everyone sees. We do not get easily angry, and we do not encourage evil things to happen. Love does not find a home in lies, greed, and corruption; it finds joy in the mornings of truth. Love willingly carries everything, and it has faith in all things. It holds onto hope in everything, and it courageously follows through on every minute detail. Love never falls short in difficult times, but it stands for the truth in all endeavors. It causes tongues to stop speaking, and it causes incorrect knowledge to fade away.
We know that wisdom is but a part of our actions, and our abilities to predict life’s events are small in actuality. When perfection arrives, parts of our wisdom and of our predictions shall fall away. As a child, my speech, my knowledge, and my thoughts were all like a child’s; as an adult, those childish things were packed up and placed in a closet, never to be seen again. When I look through my rose-colored glasses now, life is not always filled with light; seeing life as half full, I see who I am through the eyes of my loved ones and friends.
Faith, hope, and love find homes in the lives of people of the world and in God’s heart, but the greatest gift from God is love. With it, we can do great things among all of God’s children and creations. We become the ubuntu, “the I am because we are” of this beautiful world. Today’s dreariness is a time to patiently wait on God to send us a rainbow, where all things are possible and where no man can say, “I am greater than you.” We are meant to share our faith, hope, and love with others so that they may know that God loves all of us as His children.
Anna Hartt
