This month in Swaziland, I spent most of my time with the kids at the orphanage. I love kids so it was such a fun month of ministry! I fell in love with Mataban, the cutest 5 year old boy who was the doppelganger of a young Denzel Washington. I realized that for me on the race it is so easy to love adorable orphans, but sometimes I find it so difficult to truly love the ones that are closest to me, such as my family or friends when they do things that upset me or people that I don’t click with or irritate me. This month I have been learning to love even when it’s hard-one of the greatest lessons I will ever learn.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
-1 Corinthians 13
