THE CREAK OF A RUSTY GATE

The Creak of a Rusty Gate

Based on 1Corinthian 13:1 "If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate."

You want to know what love looks like? Not a juicy novel, not a TV show, but ordinary people who know God through the love of Jesus Christ.

Without love, my life is a bit scary. You see, I'm losing my ability to communicate well. I can't seem to remember nouns. I'm afraid I sound like a slow, creaky, rusty gate! It's been going on for some time now, and I suppose it has something to do with my age. When I become tongue-tied, I must just stop talking and think quietly for a few minutes. Sometimes the word comes to me. Sometimes it takes a communicatee to guess what word I'm missing. It's embarassing, yes. But most people are wonderfully understanding---and that's what love looks like.

My grandparents often lived with us when I was a girl. I remember once when my grandmother cussed (yes, cussed!) at my mother. Mom had just waxed the foyer floor and as mom was helping grandma into her bedroom for a nap, grandma slipped and fell. As mom was picking her up (Oh, so carefully!), Grandma began to call her names with language I had never heard in our house! I yelled at grandma, "Don't talk to my mother that way!" And my mom yelled back, "Don't talk to your grandmother that way!" I stomped out of the house, mad as beans.

What I did wasn't love for the one who needed it--my grandmother. What my mother did and always did was--love. She loved the cranky old woman with a love that had been born over many years of giving--and taking--love.

People aren't perfect. Nope, and we'll never be. But Jesus in us shows the world in which each of us lives what love looks like.

I pray that everyone I meet will see love in me. My relationship with Jesus, again not perfect, helps me to see HIS perfect love in others, maybe in you.

So I want to thank you for showing the world--and me, included-- what love looks like. And ask you to forgive my concern about the loss of words. Who gives a rip about words when they've got people around to love and by whom they can be loved.
(Did you catch that last phrase? Never end a sentence with a preposition, but "Who cares?")

Let's see,what comes next?

"What's the word? Oh, yes!---"
Goodbye!for now. jo