I personally find I Corinthians 13 especially helpful for all who long for more love in life.  If you really are eager to experience God-like love, then this is the road-map to follow.  You cannot expect healthy love to come into your life until you learn what it looks like and how to love others and yourself in a healthy way.  Yes, you must learn how to live a life of love in order for you to experience love completely. 

I have taken Kelsey’s outline provided in his book and have expanded upon it slightly.

Love is…

Patient - 

Enduring trials and bearing pain calmly; can wait until the time is good; never gives up; is never picky or demanding; does not have expectations of others; deals without defensiveness with conflict and criticism even when things seem unfair; chooses actions rather than reactions to emotions; understands and appropriately respects personal boundaries in self and others.

Kind -

Is thoughtful; has a gentle, helpful, considerate nature; is empathetic, compassionate; gracious; merciful; worthy; good; useful; understanding and affectionate where it is proper.

Attentive –

Listens to others with patience; hearing what a person says and doesn’t say; sees the value of others and of the Holy Spirit who dwells in them; does not place value judgments on other’s stories; knows that only as we listen to others and share their burdens can we bring healing to them.

Consoling –

Recognizes the pain of grief and sorrow of others and reaches out to them where they are at; is therefore compassionate to them; is willing to be with suffering, dying, bereaving people without needing to hurry along their journey of grief.

Confident –

Is not jealous, envious or possessive and is not fearful of losing the affection and concern of others or of God; is friendly to all, no matter what the circumstances; is secure in the knowledge that all will be well in the end.

Modest –

Is not boastful; not overbearing; not given to excessive pride; is not pompous or snobbish; reserved; unobtrusive and discreet; does not wish to be showy or to be the center of attention; is not a wind bag.

Humble –

Is not arrogant or proud; not overly convinced of one’s own importance; treats all others as human beings of equal value; knows all of us have sometimes failed; is not pushy or forceful with one’s opinion; is not judgmental or condemning of others.

Gracious –

Is never rude; is tolerant of the attitudes and feelings of others; does not behave offensively or in an unseemly manner; is not ill-mannered; is polite, courteous and proper; is civil.

Considerate –

Is yielding, compliant and flexible (respecting and understanding boundaries); thoughtful; accommodating; willing and able to listen; does not insist on or persist in pressing for or demanding one’s own way; is compromising; does not have expectations; is not selfish, self-seeking or self-centered.

Good-natured -

Is not easily stirred up to wrath; not irritable; not easily angered; not touchy, ill-tempered or easily provoked; not easily annoyed or exasperated; is easygoing; does not lose one’s head.

Forgiving –

Pardons the faults of others while honoring personal boundaries; does not have outbursts of rage; keeps no record of wrong even on oneself; is not resentful or hostile; is not inclined to feel bitterness or resentment; does not hold grudges; sees no human being as faultless; does not keep a tally of evils, injuries and nastiness.

Joyful –

Has joy in the righteous and kind; delights in the holy and is open to experiencing God’s truth; is jubilant when good appears; exalts in song and praise and love, never rejoices in the wrong, ugly or devious; is never happy about those who suffer evil or injustice; never delights in the hurts of others.

Playful –

Is merry (as if always celebrating the great cosmic drama of Christmas); does not take oneself too seriously; enjoys a playful interchange with human beings; is never afraid of laughing at oneself; never celebrates darkness, depression and dejection; is not sarcastic or does not make jokes at someone else’s expense.

Forbearing –

Puts up with and bears difficulties; persists when all seems hopeless; bears up under rejection; does not take personally the faults of others; keeps confidences and does not gossip; does not judge; does not complain about hardships; is tenacious in the face of evil or adversity.

Believing –

Trusts and accepts the truth; is open-minded to new truth; has a firm conviction that a loving Creator has made our universe and all of us; is always hoping to find truthfulness and goodness in others; does not project faults on others; is not overly doubtful or suspicious.

Hopeful –

Is encouraging; nurturing ; always expects the best in others (without being naïve or neglecting personal boundaries); looks forward to healthy goals with expectations of fulfillment; never expects the worst nor is happy with pessimism; is expectant; looks for the good in this world and the world to come; foresees the good.

Fair –

Is honest and strives to live a life of integrity (where one’s actions match his/her words); respects justice without demanding it in his/her time; takes a stand against prejudice, inequality, discrimination and unfairness.

Enduring –

Is faithful and steadfast; carries through in spite of difficulties and hardships; is respectful of fear, moving through it rather than stuck in it; stands firm when others flee; never gives up hope for self, others or the world; waits with solid confidence for God’s help.

Endless –

Is eternal; goes on forever, world without end; is unconditional; endures without limit; never ends; is divine, holy, Godlike; never drifts off course; never fails, loses or weakens in one’s conviction of love.

The following is a borrowed list of different Bible verses that can help you on the journey of self-discovery of who you are in Christ.

• I am born again…through the living and enduring word of God. (1 Peter 1:23)
• I am a child of God. (John 1:12)
• I am saved by grace through faith. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
• I am loved by God and He gave his one and only Son for me. (John 3:16)
• I am a new creation in Christ; the old has gone and the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
• I have peace with God. (Romans 5:1)
• The Holy Spirit lives in me. (1 Corinthians 3:16)
• I have access to God’s wisdom. (James 1:5)
• I am helped by God. (Hebrews 4:16)
• I am reconciled to God. (Romans 5:11)
• I am not condemned by God. (Romans 8:1)
• I am justified. (Romans 5:1)
• I have Christ’s righteousness. (Romans 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21)
• I am Christ’s ambassador. (2 Corinthians 5:20)
• I am completely forgiven. (Colossians 1:14)
• I am tenderly loved by God. (Jeremiah 31:3)
• I am the sweet fragrance of Christ to God. (2 Corinthians 2:15)
• I am a temple in which God dwells. (1 Corinthians 3:16)
• I am blameless and beyond reproach. (Colossians 1:22)
• I am the salt of the earth. (Matthew 5:13)
• I am the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)
• I am a branch on Christ’s vine. (John 15:1,5)
• I am Christ’s friend. (John 15:5)
• I am chosen by Christ to bear fruit. (John 15:16)
• I am a joint heir with Christ, sharing His inheritance with Him. (Romans 8:17)
• I am united to the Lord, one spirit with Him. (1 Corinthians 6:17)
• I am a member of Christ’s body. (1 Corinthians 12:27)
• I am a saint. (Ephesians 1:1)
• I am hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)
• I am chosen by God, holy and dearly loved. (Colossians 3:12)
• I am a child of the light. (1 Thessalonians 5:5)
• I am holy, and I share in God’s heavenly calling. (Hebrews 3:1)
• I am sanctified. (Hebrews 2:11)
• I am one of God’s living stones, being built up in Christ as a spiritual house. (1 Peter 2:5)
• I am a member of a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession and created to sing His praises. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
• I am firmly rooted and built up in Christ. (Colossians 2:7)
• I am born of God, and the evil one cannot touch me. (1 John 5:18)
• I have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16)
• I may approach God with boldness, freedom, and confidence. (Ephesians 3:12)
• I have been rescued from Satan’s domain and transferred into the kingdom of Christ. (Colossians 1:13)
• I have been made complete in Christ. (Colossians 2:10)
• I have been given a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7)
• I have been given great and precious promises by God. (2 Peter 1:4)
• My needs are met by God. (Philippians 4:19)
• I am a prince (princess) in God’s kingdom. (John 1:12; 1 Timothy 6:15)
• I have been bought with a price, and I belong to God. (1 Corinthians 6:19,20)
• I have been adopted as God’s child. (Ephesians 1:5)
• I have direct access to God through the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18)
• I am assured that all things are working together for good. (Romans 8:28)
• I am free from any condemning charges against me. (Romans 8:31f)
• I cannot be separated from the love of God. (Romans 8:35f)
• I have been established, anointed, and sealed by God. (2 Corinthians 1:21,22)
• I am confident that the good work that God has begun in me will be perfected. (Philippians 1:6)
• I am a citizen of heaven. (Philippians 3:20)
• I am a personal witness of Christ’s. (Acts 1:8)
• I am God’s coworker. (2 Corinthians 6:1, 1 Corinthians 3:9)
• I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realm. (Ephesians 2:6)
• I am God’s workmanship. (Ephesians 2:10)
• I can do all things through Christ, who gives me the strength I need. (Philippians 4:13)

I love it when my sons come home.  I love being with them.  To spend time in shared discussion, games, laughter, even serious debate are some of my most joyful times.  My sons are two of the most precious people in the world to me and I will never have too much time with them!  They bring light and love into my world.  I will always praise God for the gift of my sons!

I often think that how I feel about my sons is just a hint of how God longs for us to be with Him.  He yearns for our company and hungers for our conversation in much the same way I long to be with Bradley and Steven.  Not because He wants to control us or dominate our time, but rather because of the lovely joy brought about by heartfelt relationship – a communion of intimacy that agape love can only bring.  He wants us to long for that time with Him.

Throughout my life as a parent, I have come to appreciate the desire in my heart that when my sons do come home, they do so because they want to – not out of obligation or duty – but because they long to connect with the love that they find here with me.  I pray that their souls are filled with the knowledge that within the walls of this home they can always find a love that will never die – they can always count on my love for them.  That doesn’t mean that I am always pleased at some of the choices they have made and the natural consequences that follow, but my love never fades…it never will die.

So is God’s love for you – never ending and unconditional!  Even if He isn’t happy with some of your choices, His love never ends.   “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.”  (Romans 8:38)  God’s desire is for you to experience this love above all others.  He loves you so much that he excitedly waits for the day when you freely and completely come to him so he can wrap his loving arms around you and welcome you home!

My prayer for you this season is that today is the day when you may be open to receiving the unconditional love God has waiting for you.  May your heart be open to experience and embrace the joy that God’s love promises.  May the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus this Christmas season and throughout our New Year! 

Merry Christmas and God bless you!

Today I was introduced to two remarkable people.  Tyler Perry tells his story of childhood abuse through is website,

http://www.tylerperry.com/_Messages/.

I was moved by his story and his bravery.  I was also moved by his faith and inspiration.  What a remarkable story of survival and thriving!

Jennifer Schuett

The second story I was introduced to today was the story of Jennifer Schuett.  This is a remarkable young woman who (as a child) survived rape and attempted murder to go on to find her voice.  Another humbling, brave and inspiring story on survival and thriving in spite of severe abuse.

http://justiceforjennifer.com/

Praise God for these two people and their willingness to tell their stories.  I am touched and moved this morning.  God is good and my prayer today is that we may all be moved to use our voices to stop the abuse and assault that our world’s children face daily.

Have a blessed day! 

Emily Dickinson

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Thank you for making me so complex!  Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it.  You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.  You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book.  Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.  How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.  They cannot be numbered!  I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!  And when I wake up, you are still with me!

It is no wonder we all struggle, on some level, with a good sense of self or self-acceptance.  We are surrounded in our culture with messages telling us what we should do, what we should wear, what we should be, how we should look, where we should live, what we should own, with whom we should associate.  The messages of “shoulds” bombard us as our culture tries to define what we “should” be and how we “should” live.  Every day, we are faced with the idea that without the ‘things’ of modern culture we will come up short.  Our world drives home the point that we still have a lot we need to own or do  or be before we are going to feel a sense of contentment and happiness.  We just will never measure up to any of our popular cultural goals – we will never be good enough.  It is an exhausting and never-ending battle.

The Good News

But the good news, God’s Good News is this…He knows us and has always known us, even before we were born.  Not only does he know us, but he loves us – just the way we are – unconditionally.  “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God….and when I wake up, you are still with me!”

God knows you.  He always has known you and loved you and He promises that He will always love you.  As you were being woven in your mother’s womb, God defined you.  He gave you the wonderment and passions that He knew you would need.  He filled you with a capacity to live a life of love.  He knows what He created you to be.

It is good news to know that you are unconditionally loved, but bad news to know that you are letting outside junk define you.  How easy it is for you to let junk food, junk news, junk relationships, junk thoughts fill your heart’s definition rather than God and His love.  

Life happens!  

You are bombarded with humanness and hurts that start altering that glorious definition that God gifted to you.  As a human being, you fall prey to the messages of this world and you start losing sight of the self that God created in you.  Life’s journey affords you with the opportunity to find your way back on the path of God’s definition.  The more your personal relationship with God grows and deepens, the more clearly your God definition becomes to you.  The closer you live in balance with God’s definition, the more joy, happiness and contentment you will begin to experience each and every day of your life.  That is God’s desire for you.  That is what He has woven into your heart.  He knows what is good for you.

God loves us all!

What is even more profound is that His love is for everyone.  No one is exempt from His love.  Each and every one of us is loved this way and is known this way by God.  Our God is that big…His love is that great!  He loves us so much that He willingly suffered and died to pay for our sins…that is unconditional love. 

I sometimes am left in awe when I think about the power of God’s love – for me as an individual – but more importantly for all of us.  What would the world look like if we all embraced God’s definition for us, allowed His love to flow into us and then through us to each other?  How would we live life differently? 

We are all wonderfully made, with the gift of unconditional love from God.  Can you take this view of love from God and apply it to the people you see in the world?  Can you begin looking through the lenses of love and compassion and realize that you aren’t alone?  Take a moment and be reminded of God’s love for everyone and that He created us to enjoy each other, to enrich each others’ lives and to love each other rather than abusing, destroying, manipulating and using each other.

Regardless of our differences, our creator linked us together by weaving us into a life of love. How we understand and live that love is our spiritual journey and growth in relationship with God.  It is what God has created us to be – love.

A young, eager and ‘hungry for God’ client of mine recently told me that she has a quote of mine on her Facebook page.  As she began to rejoin her journey of building a personal relationship with God, we had been discussing what it means to let God’s love into our hearts.  It was during an email exchange that I shared the above lines with her.   This morning, she reminded me of the words I had shared with her many weeks ago.  To be honest with you, I was very surprised that these words had come from me.  Then I smiled, knowing that they didn’t come from me at all.  (I’m not that wise!)  It was God using me to touch her heart.

I love how God uses me and flows through me to reach others.  I really believe that I am one of the luckiest women alive!  I get to work with people each and every day, hearing their hearts and opening up my heart so that God can flow through me and into their lives.  As I read these words this morning, I was moved and inspired all over again.

You see (I must admit) as a counselor, I sometimes feel the weight of my work on my heart.  It isn’t always easy to hear the hurts and pains of people hour after hour, day after day.  It can be a struggle for me to know what words are important to for me to hear or what I need to say to each client.  Some days I feel as if I cannot carry anymore.  I sometimes feel as if I could crush under the burden of one more story of abuse or neglect.  One more tail of injustice or evil feels as if it could destroy my very soul.  Last night was the end of a series of days such as these, where the burdens of the hurting people I serve were weighing heavily on my heart.

I know in my humanness, I cannot handle this calling on my own.  I really have nothing to offer all the wonderful people I meet day after day, except the willingness to open my heart to God and strive to serve Him faithfully. 

Before sleep found me last night, I prayed that God would lift the weight from my heart and provide me with renewed energy to serve the hurting.  I prayed that He would bring forth His strength and fill me so that I could serve those who need Him today.  I asked that He carry me – lifting me and filling me with His love.  This morning, my client shared with me that she has the above quote on her Facebook page.  I believe this morning’s email from her was the answer to my prayers of last night.

I believe God used my words – His words – once again today.  My client doesn’t know this, but God just flowed through her and touched the heart of her therapist this morning.  When we are willing to open our hearts to be filled with God’s love, it cannot help but bubble up within us and spill out to others.  He did that through me a few months ago with these words originally sent to her.  This morning, He did it again – the same words, flowing through her to touch my heart.

My prayer today is for all of us. 

Lord, Thank you for your love.  Please help us to accept the freedom and joy that can only come when we open our hearts to you.  May this day prove to be a day when your love fills us, overflows within us, and spills out into the world.  It is only with you that we can serve each other with the love that you want us to experience and share.  In our precious Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen 

Have a blessed day!

I love this verse from Psalm133.  I feel uplifted just reading it.  When I spend time thinking about it, my heart is filled with hope and joy.  It is a wonderful and pleasant thought to think of us all living in harmony!  Merriam-Webster defines “harmony” (beyond the musical definition) as, ” an internal calm”  or “a pleasing or congruent arrangement of parts” or ” an interweaving of different accounts into a single narrative.”  Take any one of these definitions and tuck it into Psalm 133:1 and a beautiful picture comes to mind.

I haven’t given up hope of the possibility of living in harmony on this earth.  I know that is possible, but only if everyone desires the same harmony.  I cannot make other’s aspire to live this way – but I certainly can pray for that to happen.  In the meantime, there are things that I can do to work on my own harmonious contribution.

Internal Calm

First, how well do I practice living a life of harmony?  Am I bringing to the table of relationships an ”internal calm?”  Do I spend time with myself, my emotions and God to bring about a peace that only God can provide?  Or, am I reacting to the emotions that bubble up in me everyday? 

I must admit, I am not as good at choosing an action to my emotions as I wish I could be.  I know that sometimes my reactions are nothing more than a knee-jerk behavior which more times than not will leave me feeling out of control.  If instead, I pray and carefully consider an action in response, then I am exercising the only thing in life that I have control over and that is myself.  In order for me to experience an internal calm, I need to exercise self-control and choose appropriate actions examined through lenses of compassion and grace.  Lighten up, Jackie!

Pleasing Arrangement of Parts

Next, am I helping to create a “pleasing or congruent arrangement of parts?”   What does that look like?  Who gets to define that arrangement?  Often times I find myself looking for something to fill my life with happiness and joy.  If I feel a void in my heart, then I go looking in any and all directions for something to fill that empty place.  I really need to let go of this quest and understand that the real answer is already waiting for me – and that is the grace and love of Christ. 

I recently was turned on to an author that combines my two favorite topics into delightful reading material.  Morton Kelsey writes about religion and psychology in an almost poetic prose.  Although a heavy read and quite philosophical, it is delightful reading for those of us that groove on these two areas of study.  Dr. Kelsey writes in his book, The Other Side of Silence , ” First of all, such love is not created by our own effort.  It happens when we allow the love discovered inwardly, through meditation and ritual, to pour out through our deeds as Paul describes in I Corinthians 13.  It takes discipline and fortitude to allow this healing spring to continue to bubble up in us.  Allowing love to work through us takes some doing, but is far more certain than relying on our own efforts.”

Think about it…to open our hearts to the reality of God’s love for us, fills us to such a depth that we cannot keep the love inside.  God’s love will bubble up in us and through us to others.  It pours out of us because it can’t be contained!  Can you imagine living your life with such an over flowing heart, filled with so much love that you couldn’t help but spill it out - all over?!  Now that is a “pleasing arrangement of parts!”

A Single Narrative – Love

The word picture of love bubbling up naturally spills over into the third definition of harmony, an ”interweaving of different accounts into a single narrative.”  I want you to close your eyes for a moment and just picture it…what would the world look like if everyone allowed God’s love to flow into their hearts?  Everyone would be experiencing such joy that their cups would literally runneth over and love would be spilling around on and to everyone.  The interweaving of these streams of love would bubble up into a narrative of contentment, joy, peace, kindness – all that could be good in the world!  This picture fills my heart with hope and joy.  It is what God and His love is all about.  It is really all we need!

So, I begin today with this picture in mind – God’s love flowing into my heart, bubbling up and spilling in harmony to all.  That is what I can do about living in harmony!  I can allow God’s love to fill my heart, and then I can joyfully allow it to flow throughout my day and into the world through my actions, attitudes, and words.  I can choose to live a life of love!  Care to join me?