Love Extravagantly

Another cold morning.
Another polar vortex.
Another day of sunshine flooding into the house.
It's so deceptive.

This week we have another funeral.
We didn't know the man who died, but we are old friends with some of the family.
It seems to us that he was robbed of about forty years.

A dear friend of mine is a young widow,
and I have seen her walk this path of loneliness.
The evenings are especially hard.
Time hasn't made things much better.
She has grown accustomed to this new life,
but she doesn't like it.
What does one say to a widow who was happy in her marriage? 
Words can't make up for the loss of a person. 

After a funeral, a house fills with flowers.
But I say,
buy flowers today.
Fill the house with life today.
Be generous with your love, today.
Forgive, and bless, and cover with kisses,
the flawed humans that grace your little world.    

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
(from I Cor. 13, The Message) 

To hear the most epic of his many epic songs, listen to Josh Garrels here.