Topic : Love

The Romans did have an extremely modern love poet, the notorious Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18). Among other things, he composed the most famous “how-to” manual in antiquity, The Art of Love. It contained numerous handy tips on how to seduce the object of your desire. It won the poet eternal fame—and near-instant exile to the Black Sea. But in addition to pragmatic advice, Ovid also wrote a massive work on the mythology of love. And here he showed touches of astute psychology—as well as a sense of what romantic love would become in future ages.

It would be useful to concentrate on the single myth which, thanks to Ovid’s account of it, gained wide popularity and has been the source of two very important modern romantic works—which we will soon discuss.

Once upon a time on the isle of Cyprus, there lived a sculptor named Pygmalion who believed no woman perfect enough to be worthy of his interest. Instead he carved a magnificent female statue out of ivory with which—because she was perfect—he fell in love. Understandably, the statue was not moved by his frantic wooing. The desperate sculptor prayed to the goddess Venus to provide him a wife similar to the image he had created. And lo and behold, when he returned home and kissed his statue hello—she responded!

In the area of love, this was one small step for mankind. For, whatever the unusual circumstances, Pygmalion did marry the woman he had created to his own specifications and whom he passionately adored.

It was not, however, much of a step for womankind, inasmuch as we note the absence of two rather important elements in the myth. To begin with, even when animated, Pygmalion’s statue is not given a name (later versions would call her Galatea). And secondly, she doesn’t speak a word. Theirs was hardly what one might call a marriage of true minds. But it was a marriage, and one based on romantic love in which the couple lived happily ever after. And perhaps most important, it provided material for millennia of writers to adapt according to their own philosophies of love.

Parade Magazine, February 12, 1984, p. 10

Love reaches for the hurt and takes bold steps without self-interest. It can accomplish unbelievable things merely because it is so void of self-interest.

Some time ago, a teenager, Arthur Hinkley, lifted a 3,000-pound tractor with bare hands. He wasn’t a weight lifter, but his friend, Lloyd Bachelder, 18, was pinned under a tractor on a farm near Rome, Maine. Hearing Lloyd scream, Arthur somehow lifted the tractor enough for Lloyd to wriggle out.

Love was the real motivation.

Calvin Miller, “Rethinking Suburban Evangelism,” Leadership, 1988, p. 68

1. God’s Love Is Incarnational - God entered into our world and demonstrated love in a way we could visualize - understand. We must go where young people are and where they live out their lives. This in itself will demonstrate to our young people our love for them.

2. God’s Love Is Patient - We must not make impatient demands but allow young people to grow at their own pace.

3. God’s Love Is Kind - We must be gentle and sensitive to the needs and hurts of young people. We must allow them to be teenagers and not demand that they be something else.

4. God’s Love Is Not Jealous - Our supreme concern must be for our young people’s growth and not that they just attend our youth program or our activities.

5. God’s Love Does Not Brag and Is Not Arrogant - We must not spend our energies building up ourselves, but remember that servanthood is making the other person successful.

6. God’s Love Does Not Act Unbecomingly - We are not to try to act like teenagers. Teens do not want leaders who act like them, but leaders who act like leaders.

7. God’s Love Does Not Seek Its Own - Our desire must be to put others first. If we cannot do this then we cannot expect our young people to do it either.

8. God’s Love Is Not Provoked - At times this becomes a great difficulty, but we must learn as the Apostle Paul in II Corinthians 2. He stated that in every disappointment he learned to use that situation to reaffirm love for the person who disappoints him.

9. God’s Love Does Not Take Into Account a Wrong Suffered - Jesus suffered much wrong and rejection and we, too, must be willing to experience that same suffering.

10. God’s Love Rejoices With the Truth - Our young people will easily see our values by what we get most excited about.

11. God’s Love Bears and Believes All Things - We must expect the best and see people as God sees people - for the potential they can become with Christ’s help.

12. God’s Love Hopes All Things - We need to memorize Philippians 4:8 and recite it daily to ourselves.

13. God’s Love Endures All Things - Many heartaches will come our way, and the desire to give up and quit will often pass through our minds. But God’s love for us endures even our shortcomings. How can we do any less'

Sonlife Strategy, MBI, 1983, p. 10

God’s benevolent concern for humankind. All religions have some idea of the importance of love. Christian theology stresses the importance of love because God has revealed that he is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Love is both what God is and what he has done; God always acts in love.

Love is a transitive reality—that is, it requires an object. In the Bible, love is described as personal (between persons) and selfless (desiring the best for others). Christians see God’s love in sending his Son to die on the cross to save sinners (Rom. 5:8; John 3:16; 1 John 4:10). Christians are to be known by the fact that they love God and others (John (13:34-35). Their love is not to be like the love the world has (Luke 6:32, 35). Love is best seen in actions and in most cases is to be identified with what we do—in our compassion and commitment to those around us, regardless of the object’s virtue (1 John 4:19). Our loving attitudes and behavior are to reflect God’s love. Jesus said that only two commands are needed to govern our lives: love of God and love of neighbor. If such love is demonstrated, all the law and prophets are fulfilled.

The Shaw Pocket Bible Handbook, Walter A. Elwell, Editor, (Harold Shaw Publ., Wheaton , IL; 1984), p. 353

In 1773, the young pastor of a poor church in Wainsgate, England, was called to a large and influential church in London. John Fawcett was a powerful preacher and writer, and these skills had brought him this opportunity. But as the wagons were being loaded with the Fawcetts’ few belongings, their people came for a tearful farewell.

During the good-byes, Mary Fawcett cried, “John, I cannot bear to leave!”

“Nor can I,” he replied. “We shall remain here with our people.” The wagons were unloaded, and John Fawcett spent his entire fifty-four-year ministry in Wainsgate.

Out of that experience, Fawcett wrote the beautiful hymn, “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”

Today in the Word, August, 1996, p. 6

Lord, let me live from day to day
In such a self-forgetful way,
That, even when I kneel to pray,
My prayer shall be for others.

Help me, in all the work I do,
Ever to be sincere and true,
And know that all I’d do for Thee,
Must needs be done for Others.

Let “self” be crucified and slain,
And buried deep, nor rise again;
And may all efforts be in vain,
Unless they be for Others.

And when my work on earth is done,
And my new work in heaven begun
May I forget the crown I’ve won,
While thinking still of Others.

Yes, Others, Lord, yes, Others.
Let this motto be;
Help me to live for Others,
That I may live with Thee.

Anonymous

C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity wrote,

“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all....In fact, the state of being in love usually does not last....But of course ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love...is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask and receive from God....They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enable them to keep their promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.”

Elizabeth Elliot, Passion & Purity, p. 181.

In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote,

“Do not waste your time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”

Our Daily Bread, Thursday, February 14.

Mary Ann Dennis was walking her bull mastiff, Buz, in New York City’s Riverside Park when an elderly man told her, “That guy robbed me.” The suspect, in black jeans and tank top, was fleeing.

Dennis urged the victim to help her follow the robber, but the man couldn’t run. So five-foot-two Dennis went it alone. With Dennis and Buz in pursuit, the suspect raced out of the park, ran one block and hailed a cab.

“I was screaming and waving my hands,” Dennis says, “but a taxi picked him up.”

Dennis kept running. Just as she was losing hope, a white van pulled up beside her. After she explained the situation, the driver said, “Get in!”

When they caught up with the cab, its passenger was gone. The cabby told Dennis the man had fled toward Broadway. She and Buz picked up the chase on foot. Spotting her quarry hopping into another cab, Dennis leaped in front of it, shouting, “Stop! That man robbed somebody.” The thief jumped out and threatened Dennis before running to a third taxi. Dennis jumped in front just before the traffic light changed. Within moments the police arrived and handcuffed the suspect, who was charged with third-degree robbery and criminal possession of stolen property.

Would Dennis do it again? “Definitely! Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself. If the whole world lived that way, this wouldn’t be a cold city.”

Debra McGrath-Kerr and Dick Sheridan in New York Daily News, Reader’s Digest, January 1996, pp. 89-90.

A young man cowered in the corner of a dirty, roach-infested death row cell in a South Carolina prison. His body curled in a fetal position, he seemed oblivious to the filth and stench around him. His name was Rusty, and he was sentenced to die for the murder of a Myrtle Beach woman in a crime spree that left four people dead.

Police arrested twenty-three-year-old Rusty Welborn from Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1979, following one of the most brutal slayings in South Carolina history. Rusty was tried for murder and received the death penalty for his crime. Bob McAlister, deputy chief of staff to South Carolina’s governor, became acquainted with Rusty on death row. Bob had become a Christian a year or so earlier and felt a strong call from God to minister to the state’s inmates—especially those spending their last days on death row.

Bob’s first look at Rusty revealed a pitiful sight. Rusty was lying on the floor when he arrived, a pathetic picture of a man who believed he mattered to no one. The only signs of life in the cell were the roaches who scurried over everything, including Rusty himself. He made no effort to move or even to brush the insects away. He stared blankly at Bob as he began to talk, but did not respond.

During visit after visit, Bob tried to reach Rusty, telling him of the love Jesus had for him and of his opportunity—even on death row—to start a new life in Christ. He talked and prayed continuously, and finally Rusty began to respond to the stranger who kept invading his cell. Little by little, he opened up, until one day he began to weep as Bob was sharing with him. On that day, Rusty Welborn, a pitiful man with murder and darkness behind him and his own death closing in ahead of him, gave his heart to Jesus Christ.

When Bob returned to Rusty’s cell a few days later, he found a new man. The cell was clean and so was Rusty. He had renewed energy and a positive outlook on life. McAlister continued to visit him regularly, studying the Bible and praying with him. The two men became close friends over the next five years. In fact, McAlister said that Rusty grew into the son he never had, and as for Rusty, he had taken to calling McAlister “Pap.”

Bob learned that Rusty’s childhood in West Virginia had been anything but “almost heaven.” His family was destitute, and Rusty was neglected and abused as a youngster. School was an ordeal both for him and for his teachers. Throughout his junior high years he wore the same two pair of pants and two ragged shirts. Out of shame, frustration, and a lack of adult guidance, Rusty quit school in his ninth grade year, a decision that was to be just the beginning of his troubles. His teenage years were full of turmoil as he was kicked out of his home many times and ran away countless others. He spent the better part of his youth living under bridges and in public rest rooms.

Bob taught Rusty the Bible, but Rusty was the teacher when it came to love and forgiveness. This young man who had never known real love was amazed and thrilled about the love of God. He never ceased to be surprised that other people could actually love someone like him through Jesus Christ. Rusty’s childlike enthusiasm was a breath of fresh air to Bob, who came to realize how much he had taken for granted, especially with regard to the love of his family and friends.

In time Rusty became extremely bothered by the devastating pain he had caused the family and friends of his victim. Knowing that God had forgiven him, he desperately wanted the forgiveness of those he had wronged. Then a most significant thing happened: the brother of the woman Rusty had murdered became a Christian. God had dealt with him for two years about his need to forgive his sister’s killer. Finally, he wrote Rusty a letter that offered not only forgiveness but love in Christ.

Not long before his scheduled execution, this brother and his wife came to visit Rusty. Bob was present when the two men met and tearfully embraced like long-lost brothers finally reunited. Rusty’s senseless crime ten years earlier had constructed an enormous barrier between himself and the brother. The love of Christ obliterated that barrier and enabled both men to realize that, because of Him, they truly were brothers reunited on that day. It was a lesson Bob would not forget.

Not only did Rusty teach Bob McAlister how to love and forgive, he also taught him a powerful lesson about how to die. As the appointed day approached, Rusty exhibited a calm and assurance like Bob had never seen. Only his final day, with only hours remaining before his 1:00 A.M. execution, Rusty asked McAlister to read to him from the Bible. After an hour or so of listening, Rusty sat up on the side of his cot and said, “You know, the only thing I ever wanted was a home, Pap. Now I’m going to get one.”

Bob continued his reading, and after a few minutes Rusty grew very still. Thinking he had fallen asleep, Bob placed a blanket over him and closed the Bible. As he turned to leave he felt a strong compulsion to lean over and kiss Rusty on the forehead. A short time later, Rusty Welborn was executed for murder. A woman assisting Rusty in his last moments shared this postscript to his story: As he was being prepared for his death, Rusty looked at her and said, “What a shame that a man’s gotta wait ‘til his last night alive to be kissed and tucked in for the very first time.”

From Bad Beginnings to Happy Endings, by Ed Young, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publ., 1994), pp. 3-5.

Knotted, arthritic hands—
Beautiful, symmetrical hands
Long tapered fingers
Tanned skin from outdoor living
Useful beyond belief
My wife’s hands.

Knotted, arthritic hands
Misshapen from age and disease
Not very nimble now
But still useful bane belief.

I know what others see
Hands as they are today
But I see beautiful, symmetrical hands.
My wife’s hands.

And a face, beautiful sparkling brown eyes
Full red luscious lips
Skin like warm ivory
A blush of dawn in her cheek
Lovely beyond belief.
My wife’s face.

Aged wrinkled skin
A brown age spot here and there
Eyes grown dim with time
Lips pale and thinner now

I know what others see
A face as it is today
But I see a face
Lovely beyond belief.
My wife’s face.

Source unknown

In 1976 Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme exploded on to every front page in America. She had pushed her way through a crowd and had tried to kill the President of the United States. She was 17 years old. Investigators found her proud that she was a follower of Charles Manson. The world knows Manson as a crazed killer who worked through his small, dedicated band of fanatical “disciples.”

News magazines began to dig into the background of this tragic young woman. Their reports found that Squeaky had felt like a misfit in her town, and so she wandered across the country until she reached California. There Manson met her and promised to take care of her. She went with him and was willing to kill and die for him. Reporters wanted to know, “Why would you give your life to a man like Manson?” I read her explanation in a magazine, and I have never been able to forget it. Squeaky explained that she had made a choice early in her teenage years. Here it is: “Whoever loves me first can have my life.” Someone probably had loved Squeaky, but she was ready to give her life to whomever made her feel loved first.

Ron Hutchcraft, Five Needs Your Child Must Have Met at Home, Zondervan, 1995

Looking for a gift or just a unique way to say “I love you?” What do you give when his dresser is full of cologne and you’re both on diets? When she thinks flowers die too soon, and you’ve already spent next month’s paycheck? Here are 21 great inexpensive ways to tell the love of your life just how much you care.

1. Make a homemade card with a picture of the two of you on the cover. Get ideas for a verse by spending a few minutes browsing through a card shop.

2. Write a poem. It doesn’t have to rhyme.

3. Send a love letter listing the reasons “Why I love you so much.”

4. Pledge your love for a lifetime. Write it on calligraphy or design it on a desktop computer and print it out on parchment paper and have it framed.

5. Plan a surprise lunch, complete with picnic basket, sparkling grape juice and goblets.

6. Bake a giant cookie and write “I love you” with heart-shaped red hots or frosting. (Don’t worry about the calories, it’s not for eating!)

7. Make a coupon book and include coupons for a back rub, a compromise when about to lose an argument, a listening ear when needed, and doing the dishes when the other cooks.

8. Kidnap the car for a thorough washing and detailing.

9. Design your personal crest combining symbols that are meaningful to both of you.

10. Compose a love song.

11. Arrange for someone to sing a favorite love song to you and your love when you’re together.

12. Call a radio station and have them announce a love message from you and make sure your love is listening at the right time.

13. Make a big sign such as: “I Love You, Kristi. Love, Joe”, and put it in front of your house or her apartment complex for the world to see.

14. Buy favorite fruits that aren’t in season, like a basket of strawberries or blueberries.

15. Hide little love notes in the car, a coat pocket, or desk.

16. Place a love message in the “personal” section of the classified ads in your local paper.

17. Florist flowers aren’t the only way to say “I love you.” Pluck a single flower and write a message about how its beauty reminds you of your love. For greater impact, have it delivered at work.

18. Prepare a surprise candle light gourmet low-calorie dinner for two.

19. Write the story of the growth of your relationship from your perspective, sharing your emotions and your joys. What atreasure!

20. Make a paperweight from a smooth stone, paint it, and writea special love message on it.

21. Promise to change a habit that your love has been wanting you to change.

Source unknown

Two weeks after the stolen steak deal, I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, “Petting Zoo.” The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, “Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?”

“Sure,” I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. A petting zoo consists of a portable fence erected in the mall with about six inches of sawdust and a hundred little furry baby animals of all kinds. Kids pay their money and stay in the enclosure enraptured with the squirmy little critters while their moms and dads shop.

A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong.

She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, “Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter.” Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto. The family motto is in “Love is Action!”

She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched Sandy take my steak and say, “Love is Action!” She had watched both of us do and say “Love is Action!” for years around the house and Kings Arrow Ranch. She had heard and seen “Love is Action,” and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her.

What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it.

Because she knew the whole family motto. It’s not “Love is Action.” It’s “Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!” Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another’s account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn’t grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.

Dad, The Family Coach by Dave Simmons, Victor Books, 1991, pp. 123-124

The Greek word agape (love) seems to have been virtually a Christian invention—a new word for a new thing (apart from about twenty occurrences in the Greek version of the Old Testament, it is almost non-existent before the New Testament). Agape draws its meaning directly from the revelation of God in Christ. It is not a form of natural affection, however, intense, but a supernatural fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). It is a matter of will rather than feeling (for Christians must love even those they dislike—Matt. 5:44-48). It is the basic element in Christlikeness.

Read 1 Corinthians 13 and note what these verses have to say about the primacy (vv. 1-3) and permanence (vv. 8-13) of love; note too the profile of love (vv. 4-7) which they give.

Your Father Loves You by James Packer, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986, page for March 10

You can see them alongside the shuffleboard courts in Florida or on the porches of the old folks’ homes up north: an old man with snow-white hair, a little hard of hearing, reading the newspaper through a magnifying glass; an old woman in a shapeless dress, her knuckles gnarled by arthritis, wearing sandals to ease her aching arches. They are holding hands, and in a little while they will totter off to take a nap, and then she will cook supper, not a very good supper and they will watch television, each knowing exactly what the other is thinking, until it is time for bed. They may even have a good, soul-stirring argument, just to prove that they still really care. And through the night they will snore unabashedly, each resting contently because the other is there.

They are in love, they have always been in love, although sometimes they would have denied it. And because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.

Ernest Havemann, Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, pp. 7-9

Tennessee Williams tells a story of someone who forgot—the story of Jacob Brodzky, a shy Russian Jew whose father owned a bookstore. The older Brodzky wanted his son to go to college. The boy, on the other hand, desired nothing but to marry Lila, his childhood sweetheart—a French girl as effusive, vital, and ambitious as he was contemplative and retiring. A couple of months after young Brodzky went to college, his father fell ill and died. The son returned home, buried his father, and married his love. Then the couple moved into the apartment above the bookstore, and Brodzky took over its management.

The life of books fit him perfectly, but it cramped her. She wanted more adventure—and she found it, she thought, when she met an agent who praised her beautiful singing voice and enticed her to tour Europe with a vaudeville company.

Brodzky was devastated. At their parting, he reached into his pocket and handed her the key to the front door of the bookstore.

“You had better keep this,” he told her, “because you will want it some day. Your love is not so much less than mine that you can get away from it. You will come back sometime, and I will be waiting.”

She kissed him and left. To escape the pain he felt, Brodzky withdrew deep into his bookstore and took to reading as someone else might have taken to drink. He spoke little, did little, and could most times be found at the large desk near the rear of the shop, immersed in his books while he waited for his love to return.

Nearly 15 years after they parted, at Christmastime, she did return. But when Brodzky rose from the reading desk that had been his place of escape for all that time, he did not take the love of his life for more than an ordinary customer. “Do you want a book?” he asked.

That he didn’t recognize her startled her. But she gained possession of herself and replied, “I want a book, but I’ve forgotten the name of it.”

Then she told him a story of childhood sweethearts. A story of a newly married couple who lived in an apartment above a bookstore. A story of a young, ambitious wife who left to seek a career, who enjoyed great success but could never relinquish the key her husband gave her when they parted. She told him the story she thought would bring him to himself.

But his face showed no recognition. Gradually she realized that he had lost touch with his heart’s desire, that he no longer knew the purpose of his waiting and grieving, that now all he remembered was the waiting and grieving itself. "You remember it; you must remember it—the story of Lila and Jacob?”

After a long, bewildered pause, he said, “There is something familiar about the story, I think I have read it somewhere. It comes to me that it is something by Tolstoi.”

Dropping the key, she fled the shop. And Brodzky returned to his desk, to his reading, unaware that the love he waited for had come and gone.

Tennessee Williams’s 1931 story “Something by Tolstoi” reminds me how easy it is to miss love when it comes. Either something so distracts us or we have so completely lost who we are and what we care about that we cannot recognize our heart’s desire.

Signs of the Times, June, 1993, p. 11

Teddy’s letter came today and now that I’ve read it, I will place it in my cedar chest with the other things that are important to my life.

“I wanted you to be the first to know.”

I smiled as I read the words he had written and my heart welled with a pride that I had no right to feel.

I have not seen Teddy Stallard since he was a student in my fifth grade class fifteen years ago. It was early in my career, and I had only been teaching for two years.

From the first day he stepped into my classroom, I disliked Teddy. Teachers (although everyone knows differently) are not supposed to have favorites in a class, but most especially are they not to show dislike for a child, any child. Nevertheless, every year there are one or two children that one cannot help but be attached to, for teachers are human, and it is human nature to like bright, pretty, intelligent people, whether they are ten years old or twenty-five. And sometimes, not too often, fortunately, there will be one or two students to whom the teacher just can’t seem to relate.

I had thought myself quite capable of handling my personal feelings along that line until Teddy walked into my life. There wasn’t a child I particularly liked that year, but Teddy was most assuredly the one I disliked. He was dirty. Not just occasionally, but all the time. His hair hung low over his ears, and he actually had to hold it out of his eyes as he wrote papers in class. (And this was before it was fashionable to do so!) Too, he had a peculiar odor about him which I could never identify. His physical faults were many, and his intellect left a lot to be desired, also. By the end of the first week I knew he was hopelessly behind the others. Not only was he behind; he was just plain slow! I began to withdraw from him immediately.

Any teacher will tell you that it’s more of a pleasure to teach a bright child. It is definitely more rewarding for one’s ego. But any teacher worth her credentials can channel work to the bright child, keeping him challenged and learning, while she puts her major effort on the slower ones. Any teacher can do this. Most teachers do it, but I didn’t, not that year. In fact, I concentrated on my best students and let the others follow along as best they could. Ashamed as I am to admit it, I took perverse pleasure in using my red pen; and each time I came to Teddy’s paper, the cross marks (and there were many) were always a little larger and a little redder than necessary.

“Poor work!” I would write with a flourish.

While I did not actually ridicule the boy, my attitude was obviously quite apparent to the class, for he quickly became the class “goat,” the outcast: the unlovable and the unloved. He knew I didn’t like him, but he didn’t. know why. Nor did I know—then or now—why I felt such an intense dislike for him. All I know is that he was a little boy no one cared about, and I made no effort on his behalf.

The days rolled by. We made it through the Fall Festival and the Thanksgiving holidays, and I continued marking happily with my red pen. As the Christmas holidays approached, I knew that Teddy would never catch up in time to be promoted to the sixth grade level. He would be a repeater. To justify myself, I went to his cumulative folder from time to time. He had very low grades for the first four years, but no grade failure. How he had made it, I didn’t know. I closed my mind to the personal remarks.

First grade: Teddy shows promise by work and attitude, but has poor home situation. Second grade: Teddy could do better. Mother terminally ill. He receives little help at home. Third grade: Teddy is a pleasant boy. Helpful, but too serious. Slow learner. Mother passed away end of the year. Fourth grade: Very slow, but well behaved. Father shows no interest. Well, they had passed him four times, but he will certainly repeat fifth grade! Do him good! I said to myself.

And then the last day before the holiday arrived. Our little tree on the reading table sported paper and popcorn chains. Many gifts were heaped underneath, waiting for the big moment. Teachers always get several gifts at Christmas, but mine that year seemed bigger and more elaborate than ever. There was not a student who had not brought me one. Each unwrapping brought squeals of delight, and the proud giver would receive effusive thank-yous.

His gift wasn’t the last one I picked up; in fact it was in the middle of the pile. Its wrapping was a brown paper bag, and he had colored Christmas trees and red bells all over it. It was stuck together with masking tape. “For Miss Thompson, from Teddy” it read. The group was completely silent and for the first time I felt conspicuous, embarrassed because they all stood watching me unwrap the gift. As I removed the last bit of masking tape, two items fell to my desk: a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with several stones missing and a small bottle of dime-store cologne-half empty.

I could hear the snickers and whispers, and I wasn’t sure I could look at Teddy. “Isn’t this lovely?” I asked, placing the bracelet on my wrist. “Teddy, would you help me fasten it?” He smiled shyly as he fixed the clasp, and I held up my wrist for all of them to admire. There were a few hesitant ooh’s and ahh’s, but as I dabbed the cologne behind my ears, all the little girls lined up for a dab behind their ears.

I continued to open gifts until I reached the bottom of the pile. We ate our refreshments, and the bell rang. The children filed out with shouts of “See you next year!” and “Merry Christmas!” but Teddy waited at his desk.. When they had all left, he walked up to me, clutching his gift and books to his chest. “You smell just like my mom,” he said softly. “Her bracelet looks real pretty on you too. I’m glad you liked it.”

He left quickly. I locked the door, sat down at my desk, and wept, resolving to make up to Teddy what I had deliberately deprived him of—a teacher who cared.

I stayed every afternoon with Teddy from the end of Christmas holidays until the last day of school. Sometimes we worked together. Sometimes he worked alone while I drew up lesson plans or graded papers. Slowly but surely he caught up with the rest of the class. In fact, his final averages were among the highest in the class, and although I knew he would be moving out of the state when school was out, I was not worried for him. Teddy had reached a level that would stand him in good stead the following year, no matter where he went. He had enjoyed a measure of success, and as we were taught in our teacher training courses, “Success builds success.”

I did not hear from Teddy until seven years later, when his first letter appeared in my mailbox.

“Dear Miss Thompson,

I just wanted you to be the first to know, I will be graduating second in my class next month.

Very Truly Yours, Teddy Stallard”

I sent him a card of congratulations and a small package, a pen and pencil gift set. I wondered what he would do after graduation. Four years later, Teddy’s second letter came.

“Dear Miss Thompson,

I wanted you to be the first to know. I was just informed that I will be graduating first in my class. The university has not been easy, but I liked it.

Very Truly Yours, Teddy Stallard”

I sent him a good pair of sterling silver monogrammed cuff links and a card, so proud of him I could burst! And now today—Teddy’s third letter.

“Dear Miss Thompson,

I wanted you to be the first to know. As of today I am Theodore Stallard, M.D. How about that!!"? I’m going to be married in July, the 2 7^th, to be exact. I wanted to ask if you could come and sit where Mom would sit if she were here. I’ll have no family there as Dad died last year.

Very Truly Yours, Teddy Stallard”

I’m not sure what kind of gift one sends to a doctor on completion of medical school and state boards. Maybe I’ll just wait and take a wedding gift, but a note can’t wait.

“Dear Ted,

Congratulations! You made it, and you did it yourself! In spite of those like me and not because of us, this day has come for you. God bless you. I’ll be at the wedding with bells on!

- Elizabeth Silance Ballard

More Stories for the Heart, compiled by Alice Gray (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1997), pp. 55-59.

During the 17^th century, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, sentenced a soldier to be shot for his crimes. The execution was to take place at the ringing of the evening curfew bell. However, the bell did not sound. The soldier’s fiancée had climbed into the belfry and clung to the great clapper of the bell to prevent it from striking. When she was summoned by Cromwell to account for her actions, she wept as she showed him her bruised and bleeding hands. Cromwell’s heart was touched and he said, “Your lover shall live because of your sacrifice. Curfew shall not ring tonight!”

Our Daily Bread

What is love? Asks the child untouched
Whose mother’s hand he clutched
His tender heart knows only Trust
Feels only love, knows not of Lust.

What is love? Asks the blossoming soul
Questioning her life’s role
Struggling to separate
Infatuation from love’s fate.

What is love? Asks the youth enlightened
Remembering passion heightened
Wondering if is was an act of Love
Or if not approved by those Above

What is love? Asks the united one
Whose ring reflects the golden Sun
Hoping it will last forever
That they will always remain Together

What is love? Asks the furrowed face
Moving at a withering pace
“It has remained all around me.
To its treasure I’ve not found The key.”

What is love? I cannot explain
It includes extremes of Happiness and pain
I will never understand love’s Many hues
Yet I will always know that I Love you...

Anna Smith - Lind High School, 1993

Why do toymakers watch the divorce rate? When it rises, so do toy sales. According to the analyzers, four parents and eight grandparents tend to compete for children’s affections, so buy toys.

L. M. Boyd, 3-15-93, Spokesman Review

A few years ago, the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, MO, made public 1,300 recently-discovered letters that the late President wrote to his wife, Bess, over the course of a half-century. Mr. Truman had a lifelong rule of writing to his wife every day they were apart. He followed this rule whenever he was away on official business or whenever Bess left Washington to visit her beloved Independence.

Scholars are examining the letters for any new light they may throw on political and diplomatic history. For our part, we were most impressed by the simple fact that every day he was away, the President of the United States took time out from his dealing with the world’s most powerful leaders to sit down and write a letter to his wife.

Bits & Pieces, October 15, 1992, pp. 15-16

During World War II, Hitler commanded all religious groups to unite so that he could control them. Among the Brethren assemblies, half complied and half refused. Those who went along with the order had a much easier time. Those who did not, faced harsh persecution. In almost every family of those who resisted, someone died in a concentration camp.

When the war was over, feelings of bitterness ran deep between the groups and there was much tension. Finally they decided that the situation had to be healed. Leaders from each group met at a quiet retreat. For several days, each person spent time in prayer, examining his own heart in the light of Christ’s commands. Then they came together.

Francis Schaeffer, who told of the incident, asked a friend who was there, “What did you do then?” “We were just one,” he replied. As they confessed their hostility and bitterness to God and yielded to His control, the Holy Spirit created a spirit of unity among them. Love filled their hearts and dissolved their hatred.

When love prevails among believers, especially in times of strong disagreement, it presents to the world an indisputable mark of a true follower of Jesus Christ.

Our Daily Bread, October 4, 1992

Seoul—At his father’s funeral, American Carl Lewis placed his 100-meter gold medal from the 1984 Olympics in his father’s hands. “Don’t worry,” he told his surprised mother. “I’ll get another one.”

A year later, in the 100-meter final at the 1988 games, Lewis was competing against Canadian world-record-holder Ben Johnson. Halfway through the race Johnson was five feet in front. Lewis was convinced he could catch him. But at 80 meters, he was still five feet behind. It’s over, Dad, Lewis thought. As Johnson crossed the finish, he stared back at Lewis and thrust his right arm in the air, index finger extended.

Lewis was exasperated. He had noticed Johnson’s bulging muscles and yellow-tinged eyes, both indications of steroid use. “I didn’t have the medal, but I could still give to my father by acting with class and dignity,” Lewis said later. He shook Johnson’s hand and left the track. But then came the announcement that Johnson had tested positive for anabolic steroids. He was stripped of his medal. The gold went to Lewis, a replacement for the medal he had given his father.

David Wallechinsky in The Complete Book of the Olympics, Reader’s Digest

She was lying on the ground. In her arms she held a tiny baby girl. As I put a cooked sweet potato into her outstretched hand, I wondered if she would live until morning. Her strength was almost gone, but her tired eyes acknowledged my gift. The sweet potato could help so little—but it was all I had.

Taking a bite she chewed it carefully. Then, placing her mouth over her baby’s mouth, she forced the soft warm food into the tiny throat. Although the mother was starving, she used the entire potato to keep her baby alive.

Exhausted from her effort, she dropped her head on the ground and closed her eyes. In a few minutes the baby was asleep. I later learned that during the night the mother’s heart stopped, but her little girl lived.

Love is a costly thing.

God in His love for us (and for a lost world) “spared not His own Son” to tell the world of His love. Love is costly, but we must tell the world at any cost. Such love is costly.

It costs parents and sons and daughters. It costs the missionary life itself. In his love for Christ the missionary often must give up all to make the Savior known. If you will let your love for Christ, cost you something, the great advance will be made together.

Love is a Costly Thing by Dick Hillis

Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community.

In Chicago a few years ago a little boy attended a Sunday school I know of. When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Sunday school, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way. A friend asked him why he went so far, and told him that there were plenty of others just as good nearer his home.

“They may be as good for others, but not for me,” was his reply.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because they love a fellow over there,” he replied.

If only we could make the world believe that we loved them, there would be fewer empty churches, and a smaller proportion of our population who never darken a church door. Let love replace duty in our church relations, and the world will soon be evangelized.

- OC International

Moody’s Anecdotes, pp. 71-72

A woman seeking counsel from Dr. George W. Crane, the psychologist, confided that she hated her husband, and intended to divorce him. “I want to hurt him all I can,” she declared firmly.

“Well, in that case,” said Dr. Crane, “I advise you to start showering him with compliments. When you have become indispensable to him, when he thinks you love him devotedly, then start the divorce action. That is the way to hurt him.”

Some months later the wife returned to report that all was going well. She had followed the suggested course.

“Good,” said Dr. Crane. “Now’s the time to file for divorce.”

“Divorce!” the woman said indignantly. “Never. I love my husband dearly!”

Bits & Pieces, August 22, 1991

No more convincing evidence of the absence of parental affection exists than that compiled by Rene Spitz. In a South American orphanage, Spitz observed and recorded what happened to 97 children who were deprived of emotional and physical contact with others. Because of a lack of funds, there was not enough staff to adequately care for these children, ages 3 months to 3 years old. Nurses changed diapers and fed and bathed the children. But there was little time to hold, cuddle, and talk to them as a mother would. After three months many of them showed signs of abnormality. Besides a loss of appetite and being unable to sleep well, many of the children lay with a vacant expression in their eyes. After five months, serious deterioration set in.

They lay whimpering, with troubled and twisted faces. Often, when a doctor or nurse would pick up an infant, it would scream in terror. Twenty seven, almost one third, of the children died the first year, but not from lack of food or health care. They died of a lack of touch and emotional nurture. Because of this, seven more died the second year. Only twenty one of the 97 survived, most suffering serious psychological damage.

Unfinished Business, Charles Sell, Multnomah, 1989, pp. 39ff

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks. “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.”

She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says, “It is kind of cute.” All at once I know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.

Richard Selzer, M.D., Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery, 1978, pp. 45-6

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell.

Thomas A Kempis

C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1960, p. 169.

“I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged and my courage does not falter. I know how American civilization leans upon the triumph of the government. I know how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down the joys of this life to help maintain this government and to help pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with many cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break. And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. The memory of all those blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel most grateful to God and you that I have enjoyed them for so long.

And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the future years, when God willing, we might have loved and lived together, and watched our boys grow up around us to honorable manhood. If I do not return my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield it will whimper your name.”

Major Sullivan Ballou, of the Union Army, to his wife Sarah. One week later, Major Ballou was killed at the first battle of Bull Run.

For 36 years Jeno and his wife delighted in one another. But one day Jeno suffered a stroke. For weeks he lay in the hospital, slipping in and out of a coma. Day and night his wife sat at his side. One evening, she put her head on his hand and fell asleep.

Jeno awoke during the night and seeing his wife, picked up an envelope and pencil and scribbled these words: “Softly, I will leave you, for my heart would break if you should wake and see me go. So I leave you. Long before you miss me. Long before your arms can beg me stay for one more hour, one more day. After all of the years, I can’t stand the tears to fall, so I leave you softly.”

Today in the Word, February, 1991, p. 32

Once upon a time a person was touched by God, and God gave him a priceless gift. This gift was the capacity for love. He was grateful and humble, and he knew what an extraordinary thing had happened to him. He carried it like a jewel and he walked tall and with purpose.

From time to time he would show this gift to others, and they would smile and stroke his jewel. But it seemed that they’d also dirty it up a little. Now, this was no way to treat such a precious thing, so the person built a box to protect his jewel. And he decided to show it only to those who would treat it with respect and meet it with reverent love of their own.

Even that didn’t work, for some tried to break into the box. So he built a bigger, stronger box—one that no one could get into—and the man felt good. At last he was protecting the jewel as it should be. Upon occasion, when he decided that someone had earned the right to see it, he’d show it proudly. But they sometimes refused, or kind of smudged it, or just glanced at it disinterestedly.

Much time went by, and then only once in awhile would one pass by the man, the aging man; he would pat his box and say, “I have the loveliest of jewels in here.” Once or twice he opened the box and offered it saying, “Look and see. I want you to.” And the passerby would look and look, and look. And then he would back away from the old man, shaking his head.

The man died, and he went to God, and he said, “You gave me a precious gift many years ago, and I’ve kept it safe, and it is as lovely as the day you gave it to me.” And he opened the box and held it out to God. He glanced in it, and in it was a lizard—an ugly, laughing lizard. And God walked away from him.

Yes, there is a hell.

Lois Cheney, God is no Fool, pp. 33-4

• Tender love, Tough love, Sacrificial love, Who You Are When No One’s Looking, Bill Hybels, IVP, 1987, pp. 57-81
• Leadership, IV, 3, p. 95

If we discovered that we had five minutes left to say all we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they love them. Why wait until the last five minutes?

C. Morley, in Homemade, July, 1990

The teacher in our adult-education creative-writing class told us to write “I love you” in 25 words or less, without using the words “I love you.” She gave us 15 minutes. A woman in the class spent about ten minutes looking at the ceiling and wriggling in her seat. The last five minutes she wrote frantically, and later read us the results:

• “Why, I’ve seen lots worse hairdos than that, honey.”
• “These cookies are hardly burned at all.”
• “Cuddle up—I’ll get your feet warm.”

Charlotte Mortimer, in Feb., 1990, Reader’s Digest

In The Christian Leader, Don Ratzlaff retells a story Vernon Grounds came across in Ernest Gordon’s Miracle on the River Kwai. The Scottish soldiers, forced by their Japanese captors to labor on a jungle railroad, had degenerated to barbarous behavior, but one afternoon something happened.

A shovel was missing. The officer in charge became enraged. He demanded that the missing shovel be produced, or else. When nobody in the squadron budged, the officer got his gun and threatened to kill them all on the spot . . . It was obvious the officer meant what he had said. Then, finally, one man stepped forward. The officer put away his gun, picked up a shovel, and beat the man to death. When it was over, the survivors picked up the bloody corpse and carried it with them to the second tool check. This time, no shovel was missing. Indeed, there had been a miscount at the first check point.

The word spread like wildfire through the whole camp. An innocent man had been willing to die to save the others! . . . The incident had a profound effect. . . The men began to treat each other like brothers.

When the victorious Allies swept in, the survivors, human skeletons, lined up in front of their captors . . (and instead of attacking their captors) insisted: ‘No more hatred. No more killing. Now what we need is forgiveness.’

The Christian Leader, Don Ratzlaff

Sacrificial love has transforming power. Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. It is, so much the better; but if it isn’t, the commitment to love, the will to love, still stands and is still exercised.

Conversely, it is not only possible but necessary for a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love. I may meet a woman who strongly attracts me, whom I feel like loving, but because it would be destructive to my marriage to have an affair, I will say vocally or in the silence of my heart, “I feel like loving you, but I am not going to.” My feelings of love may be unbounded, but my capacity to be loving is limited. I therefore must choose the person on whom to focus my capacity to love, toward whom to direct my will to love. True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.

Dr. M. Scott Peck.

If a man loves a woman for her beauty, does he love her?
No; for the small-pox, which destroys her beauty without killing her, causes his love to cease.

And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love me?
No; for I can lose these qualities without ceasing to be.

- Pascal

Source unknown

There is not much difference lexically between agapao and phileo. Both involve a voluntary (I’ve decided to love you) and involuntary (I can’t help but love you) response.

One point: there is no command to love in scripture that ever uses phileo.

C. Swindoll, Growing Strong, pp. 67-8

• It’s very human to begin looking for something and then forget what you’re looking for.
• Unconditional love does not equal uncritical love.—Philippians 1:9-11
• In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity. - Augustine
• On the whole, God’s love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him. - C. S. Lewis
• It is natural to love them that love us, but it is supernatural to love them that hate us.
• Love at first sight is easy to understand.
• It’s when two people have been looking at each other for years that it becomes a miracle.
• You Don’t Have to Be in Who’s Who to Know What’s What. - Sam Levenson,
• Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing...
• Love...is a deep unity maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habits reinforced by the grace which both partners ask and receive from God...
• On this love the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it. - C. S. Lewis

Sources unknown

It is silence—when your words would hurt.
It is patience—when your neighbor’s curt.
It is deafness—when a scandal flows.
It is thoughtfulness—for other’s woes.
It is promptness—when stern duty calls.
It is courage—when misfortune falls.

Source unknown

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

- Samuel T. Coleridge

Source unknown

Love ever gives.
Forgives, outlives,
And ever stands
With open hands.
And while it lives,
It gives,
For this is love’s prerogative—
To give, and give, and give.

- Oxenham

Source unknown

Dearest Jimmy,

No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you!

Yours forever, Marie.

P.S. And congratulations on winning the state lottery.

Source unknown

One ingenious teenager, tired of reading bedtime stories to his little sister, decided to record several of her favorite stories on tape. He told her, “now you can hear your stories anytime you want. Isn’t that great?” She looked at the machine for a moment and then replied, “No. It hasn’t got a lap.”

Source unknown

Some years ago, Dr. Karl Menninger, noted doctor and psychologist, was seeking the cause of many of his patients’ ills. One day he called in his clinical staff and proceeded to unfold a plan for developing, in his clinic, an atmosphere of creative love. All patients were to be given large quantities of love; no unloving attitudes were to be displayed in the presence of the patients, and all nurses and doctors were to go about their work in and out of the various rooms with a loving attitude.

At the end of six months, the time spent by patients in the institution was cut in half.

Source unknown

There is nothing you can to do make God love you more!
There is nothing you can do to make God love you less!
His love is Unconditional, Impartial, Everlasting, Infinite, Perfect!

Richard C. Halverson

1. They are children.

2. They tend to act like children.

3. Much of childish behavior is unpleasant.

4. I do my part as a parent and love them despite their childish behavior, they will be able to mature and give up childish ways.

5. If I only love them when they please me (conditional love), and convey my love to hem only during those times, they will not feel genuinely loved. This in turn will make them insecure, damage their self-image, and actually prevent them from moving on to better self-control and more mature behavior. Therefore, their behavior is my responsibility as much as theirs.

6. If I love them unconditionally, they will feel good about themselves and be comfortable with themselves. They will then be able to control their anxiety and, in turn, their behavior, as they grow into adulthood.

Dr. Ross Campbell, How to Really Love Your Child.

“I love you. Period.” Or it could be extended to say, “I love you in spite of ...” or, “I love you anyhow...” or “I love you for no good reason.”

Now how do you think your ego could handle that? Do you really want to be loved for no good reason? Isn’t that what unconditional love is? More often than not, the statement, “I love you,” is responded to with the question, “Why?” And when you ask for a “why” are you not asking for some condition? It sounds like, “Please love me unconditionally, but tell me why.” That’s the double bind.

Dave Grant, June, 1982, Homemade

A young man said to his father at breakfast one morning, “Dad, I’m going to get married.” “How do you know you’re ready to get married?” asked the father. “Are you in love?” “I sure am,” said the son. “How do you know you’re in love?” asked the father. “Last night as I was kissing my girlfriend good-night, her dog bit me and I didn’t feel the pain until I got home.”

Source unknown

Despotism, and attempts at despotism, are a kind of disease of public spirit—they represent, as it were, the drunkenness of responsibility. It is when men begin to grow desperate in their love for the people, when they are overwhelmed with the difficulties and blunders of humanity, that they fall back upon the wild desire to manage everything themselves. This belief that all would go right if we could only get the strings into our own hands is a fallacy, almost without exception. But nobody can say it is not public-spirited. The sin and sorrow of despotism is not that it does not love men, but that it loves them too much, and trusts them too little.

G. K. Chesterton

Years ago Father John Powell told the story of Norma Jean Mortenson:

Norma Jean Mortenson. Remember that name? Norma Jean’s mother, Mrs. Gladys Baker, was periodically committed to a mental institution and Norma Jean spent much of her childhood in foster homes. In one of those foster homes, when she was eight years old, one of the boarders raped her and gave her a nickel. He said, ‘Here, Honey. Take this and don’t ever tell anyone what I did to you.’ When little Norma Jean went to her foster mother to tell her what had happened she was beaten badly. She was told, ‘Our boarder pays good rent. Don’t you ever say anything bad about him!’ Norma Jean at the age of eight had learned what it was to be used and given a nickel and beaten for trying to express the hurt that was in her.

Norma Jean turned into a very pretty young girl and people began to notice. Boys whistled at her and she began to enjoy that, but she always wished they would notice she was a person too—not just a body—or a pretty face—but a person.

Then Norma Jean went to Hollywood and took a new name—Marilyn Monroe and the publicity people told her, ‘We are going to create a modern sex symbol out of you.’ And this was her reaction, ‘A symbol? Aren’t symbols things people hit together?’ They said, ‘Honey, it doesn’t matter, because we are going to make you the most smoldering sex symbol that ever hit the celluloid.’

She was an overnight smash success, but she kept asking, ‘Did you also notice I am a person? Would you please notice?’ Then she was cast in the dumb blonde roles. “Everyone hated Marilyn Monroe. Everyone did.

She would keep her crews waiting two hours on the set She was regarded as a selfish prima donna. What they didn’t know was that she was in her dressing room vomiting because she was so terrified.

She kept saying, ‘Will someone please notice I am a person. Please.’ They didn’t notice. They wouldn’t take her seriously.

She went through three marriages—always pleading, ‘Take me seriously as a person.’ Everyone kept saying, ‘But you are a sex symbol. You can’t be other than that.’ Marilyn kept saying ‘I want to be a person. I want to be a serious actress.’

And so on that Saturday night, at the age of 35 when all beautiful women are supposed to be on the arm of a handsome escort, Marilyn Monroe took her own life. She killed herself. When her maid found her body the next morning, she noticed the telephone was off the hook. It was dangling there beside her.

Later investigation revealed that in the last moments of her life she had called a Hollywood actor and told him she had taken enough sleeping pills to kill herself.

He answered with the famous line of Rhett Butler, which I now edit for church, ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t care!’ That was the last word she heard. She dropped the phone—left it dangling.

Claire Booth Luce in a very sensitive article asked, ‘What really killed Marilyn Monroe, love goddess who never found any love?’ She said she thought the dangling telephone was the symbol of Marilyn Monroe’s whole life. She died because she never got through to anyone who understood.

Dynamic Preaching, June, 1990

Newspaper columnist and minister George Crane tells of a wife who came into his office full of hatred toward her husband. “I do not only want to get rid of him, I want to get even. Before I divorce him, I want to hurt him as much as he has me.

Dr. Crane suggested an ingenious plan “Go home and act as if you really love your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate, and generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you love him. After you’ve convinced him of your undying love and that you cannot live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you’re getting a divorce. That will really hurt him.”

With revenge in her eyes, she smiled and exclaimed, “Beautiful, beautiful. Will he ever be surprised!”

And she did it with enthusiasm. Acting “as if.” For two months she showed love, kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing, sharing.

When she didn’t return, Crane called. “Are you ready now to go through with the divorce?”

“Divorce?” she exclaimed. “Never! I discovered I really do love him.” Her actions had changed her feelings. Motion resulted in emotion. The ability to love is established not so much by fervent promise as often repeated deeds.

- J. Allan Petersen

Source unknown

When someone says, "I don't love you anymore,"  it shakes you to your very core.  It caused me to ponder the true meaning of love as never before.  After many years, I arrived at the only definition that makes any sense.  Since God is love and we must compare our love to him, we come up short if we define it any other way.  For you see, in the final analysis, "Love is a commitment with a beginning and no end."  Christ chose to love us and he has never stopped.  He never will.  We should be very careful with a word like love.  Are we willing to make that kind of commitment?

Wayne Hudson                                                                                                                                               author of Many A Tear Has To Fall Padon Press

The love of a mother is never exhausted. It never changes-it never tires-it endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condemnation, a mother's love still lives on.

Washington Irving

A Mother's love is something that no one can explain,
It is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it or take that love away...

It is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters even though the heart is breaking...
It believes beyond believing when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty of the rarest, brightest gems...

It is far beyond defining, it defies all explanation,
and it still remains a secret like the mysteries of creation...
A many-splendored miracle man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence of God's tender guiding hand.

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