Love is ...

It was Daughter and Son-in-law's sixth wedding anniversary on Valentine's Day. (Yes, sixth and still no babies! I am doomed to be an ancient grandma.) And last night in Zac's Bible study we'd reached one of the most popular wedding readings: 1 Corinthians 13.

For Daughter's wedding I was delighted to be asked to write something and, based on that chapter, this is what I wrote.

Love is patient. Even when you change the television channels so fast it looks as though Alan Titchmarshis giving the Queen Vic a flouncy frilled make-over and Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen is phoning a friend, even then love is patient.
Love is kind. I know you don’t like to be too hot in bed so, because love is kind, I put my cold feet on you.
Love does not boast, even when Wales beat England, 23-15, it doesn’t boast, not even mention it, not once.
When I get the dance steps right and you rumba stumblingly to a halt, love is not proud.
Love is not rude, and never mentions bald heads or expanding waistlines.
Love is not self-seeking - except possibly when dishing up the chips.
Love is not easily angered, and I do not drive too close to the car in front!
Love keeps no record of wrongs –you’ve spilled red wine on my clean tablecloths 243 times but I’m not counting.

No, love isn’t easy. And sometimes it hurts.
And a mother’s desire is to protect her children from those hurts, to shelter them from pain, to scatter petals before them, to make their paths beautiful. Were I to pray for an easy life, for easy love, for you, would I be sparing you heartache or preventing you from experiencing the richness of love and life in its fullness?

I ask instead that God will be the rock on which you stand and your strength, that the knowledge of his perfect love for you will be the security that frees you to walk into the future, hand in hand, with your love and laughter being the only ties that bind.

Love is hard work.
And it costs.
Wrinkles and grey hairs the world sees; the tears it doesn’t.

Love takes effort but if you can see your own and each other’s faults and love yourself and each other in spite of them, you will understand more of the power of love.
Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
xx