IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT GOD IS LOVE, AND THE WAY TO GOD IS THROUGH LOVE. I CAME ACROSS A POEM WHICH MAKES ME REFLECT ON THE MEANING OF LOVE.
THE MEANING OF LOVE
BOTH LIGHT AND SHADOW ARE THE DANCE OF LOVE
LOVE HAS NO CAUSE
IT IS THE ASTROLOGY OF GOD’S SECRETS
LOVER AND LOVING ARE INSEPARABLE AND TIMELESS
ALTHOUGH I MAY TRY TO DESCRIBE LOVE
WHEN I EXPERIENCE IT, I AM SPEECHLESS
ALTHOUGH I MAY TRY TO WRITE ABOUT LOVE
I AM RENDERED HELPLESS,
MY PEN BREAKS AND THE PAPER SLIPS AWAY
AT THE INEVITABLE PLACE WHERE LOVER AND LOVING ARE ONE
EVERY MOMENT IS MADE GLORIOUS BY THE LIGHT OF LOVE
——RUMI
MY FIRST REALIZATION THAT GOD IS LOVE CAME WHEN I SHARED MYSELF WITH TWO FRIENDS NEEDLES AND COWMILKER. WHEN I MOVED TO NORTH CAROLINA I DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT OR WHAT I WAS DOING? I WAS LOST AND ON A JOURNEY WITH NO END. I MET TWO WONDERFUL PEOPLE WHO WITH THEIR KIND NATURE RE-OPENED MY EYES TO GOD. I REALIZED THAT GOD HAD A MISSION FOR MY LIFE. I WAS PUT HERE FOR A REASON!!!!! I HAVE SUFFERED A GREAT DEAL AND WAS RUNNING AWAY-FROM THE PAIN I HAVE HAD!!!!! COWMILKER TOLD ME “WAIT AND BE STILL IT IS IN GOD’S TIME” I WILL NEVER FORGET THAT !!!!!!!!!! WITH THOSE WORD MY NEW JOURNEY WITH GOD BEGAN. COWMILKER HAS ALSO TOLD ME “GOD WILL TAKE YOU AND EVERY THING YOU KNOW AWAY TO GET YOUR ATTENTION”
I LEFT EVERYTHING I HAVE KNOWN AND LOVED!!! GOD KNEW ME AND HE WANTED ME BACK. HIS PLAN WAS FOR ME TO MEET THEM AND THE DAILY LILY.
I HAVE NEVER FELT SO MUCH LOVE! JESUS SUFFERED FOR US AND AT ONE POINT I FELT MY SUFFERING WAS MORE. WITH THE GRACE OF GOD I KNOW WHAT LOVE IS AGAIN. MABEY WE ASSOCIATE LOVE WITH GOD BECAUSE ULTIMATELY WE SEEK TO BOND, TO UNITE WITH ANOTHER HUMAN BEING IN A WAY THAT IS HIGHER AND MORE MEANINGFUL THAN JUST COMPANIONSHIP. THE FREE EXPRESSION OF THE HEART, THE EXPRESSION OF LOVE AND IT’S PURITY AND SO IT FELT LIKE GOD.
I CORINTHIANS 13:4-7
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 WHITH THE TRUTH. IT ALWAYS PROTECTS, ALWAYS TRUSTS, ALWAYS HOPES, ALWAYS PRESERVES.
LOVE IS SOMETHING SO GREAT AND EXPANSIVE THAT IT CANNOT EASILY BE EXPRESSED BY THE LIMITATIONS OF WORDS. LOVE STILL SCARES ME BUT I AM IN LOVE WITH THE LORD! WITH HIM ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. WE ALL WANT TO HEAR THE WORD ‘S “I LOVE YOU” HOWEVER IF I DON’T I KNOW THE LORD LOVES ME. I PRAY THIS VALENTINE’S DAY WE FOCUS ON GOD’S LOVE FOR US, AND THE PEOPLE WE HAVE IN OUR LIVES. HE HAS PUT US HERE FOR A REASON. LET US BE THANKFUL FOR HIM AND THEM. LET’S MAKE THIS THE LORD’S HOLIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!
thedailylily.com 
This love story sure touches the heart. Throughout the day I have been contemplating your words: “JESUS SUFFERED FOR US AND AT ONE POINT I FELT MY SUFFERING WAS MORE.” Those words sure bring a chord of harmony to one’s soul. With all of us at ‘The Daily Lily’ living together in harmony united by the Son of God, Rumi and Elizabeth Barrett Browing and loved ones both here and those living in the sphere of spirit writes, speaks and lives the words of the Master teacher, 1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
One of my favorites:
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…”
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
I believe Rumi also wrote these beloved words.
“We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.“
Jersey, from the beautiful poem you shared, to your examples of the love and care of friends, to the enlightening scriptures, and then to your own thoughts, all bring a focus for me on that ‘great and expansive’ love you speak of above. Thinking about this expanse is like trying to measure the sky, or count the grains of sand on every seashore and sea floor in the world, or picture every flower that will ever bloom on God’s earth. It causes me to run to pray this prayer in Ephesians 3:17-19: “…that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.”
Bringing this love into focus does give much to be thankful for. Thanks for sharing this beauty from the heart.
(Trickles of Living Water, by Ruth K. Catalano c.1972) A thirty-one day devotional…… The Love of God…day 28…The love of God is greater than any love I’ve known. It whispers to the waiter the wonders of His Throne. The gates of Heaven open when God’s love shines in. And Christ the Link unbroken, blots out the stain of sin. Such Love gives hope to persevere, Its bounds no man can see, for after all its dwelling here It swells eternity……(I have always loved poems because they cause one to think deeply…and the one that you shared caused me to do just that and I found this one that I love after reading what you wrote. It made me search until I found it. It’s a “cause you to think poem ” too…dj)
It was just a few minutes before I had logged onto thedailylily this very morning that I had read from one of my favorite devotionals by Dr. David Teems. And his message had left in me a yearning, a vague, wistful longing. And this is what he wrote,(and I quote and paraphrase). “Greet one another with a holy kiss”(rom. 16:16) “It was to be a standard, a law kept among us, a rule of engagement among ourselves,” for Jesus had said that they would know that we are Christians by our love for one another”. But Dr. Teems laments, “What changed? When did we reorder order? When did we begin to hoard our kisses and hold back the hand of fellowship?”
From that perspective, I came to thedailylily and read Jersey’s incredible tribute to LOVE in the true sense of the Word; a testimony of loving, caring friends and of godly counsel. There it was! I wish that Dr. Teems could read this glorious testimonial about the LOVE of GOD and its power that is still alive in the BODY OF CHRIST. For Dr. Teems goes on to say, “Let us be free again. Let us dismantle the mystery, the arguments and the suspicion among us. Let our countenance become warm and alive again with invitation, with LOVE, eager to engage, to impose itself and flourish upon us with concord and sweetness. That we may love as we did in the beginning of this bright new WAY, this new ORDER when we were desperate for each other and when GOD was pleased and easy among us…when LOVE was the only code between us; when there were no secrets, nothing owned that wasn’t shared; that even in an age that has lost its “sense of touch”, we may once again plant our kiss of hope, upon the cheek of FRIENDSHIP”
And I rejoiced that that Christian love is still alive and still abounding, and what Dr. Teems and the LORD JESUS longs for lives on among the LILIES!