I don’t know how, but we’re already nearly halfway through March.
And though it seems like we just celebrated Christmas, Spring is here, as are it’s little telltale signs of new life and fresh beginnings.
Like the quickly blossoming buds on my trees and the birds singing merrily against perfectly blue skies.
And this:
Normally, I wouldn’t be thrilled about clover popping up in my flower beds. But this year I couldn’t pull it up without looking more closely.
How did I ever not really notice the perfect little green hearts that make up a clover leaf? Every heart similar and yet not quite the same. All three hearts attached to the same stem with each still maintaining its own unique beauty. Such a simple glory.
Knowing that St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, we did a project at the nursing home today that mimicked these beautiful little weeds –
One lady asked me what we were going to do today. She has difficulty remembering most things, but she knew a heart when she saw one, as I pulled the individual pieces of the shamrock out of the bag. What she didn’t know and soon found out was that three hearts make something new. Something unexpected. Something beautiful. And to her delight, she watched the magic happen before her eyes as formerly disjointed pieces came together to create a new thing.
It was an extremely simple project today and one that probably held little meaning for them other than the pretty green color and the time spent together.
But for me, it went a little deeper. I woke in the night when the familiar phrase from the bible – “But the greatest of these is love.”
Love. Symbolized in front of me in my yard and all over these elderly ladies’ craft table in all of it’s little green glory.
Love. Why is it greater than faith and hope? Because it’s what fuels them. It’s what outlasts them. It’s what died on the cross so that we could even EXPERIENCE faith and hope.
If you read 1 Corinthians 13, the first portion talks about how love needs to be the source, the fuel, of everything we do. We might believe all the right things, say all the right things and even do all the right things. But if those things aren’t done from a heart of love then they don’t mean a thing. Absolutely no lasting, eternal value.
The second portion talks about what love looks like. You know the list –
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
I won’t belabor that point since I just went through that list in another post this week. But I will say, faith and hope do not fit those descriptions.
The last portion tells us that love outlasts everything else. Even prophecy and spiritual gifts and knowledge. Because anything that we’ve experienced here on earth, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF LOVE, will fade into oblivion when we come into the reality of heaven. Even faith and hope, so necessary on earth, will have no purpose in heaven because they are realized completely in the presence of Jesus. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 13: “…but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.” Bingo. Love is the only thing that passes every test of time, motive and definition.
Love is forever. And ever.
And now imagine the beauty of hearts combining, like the cover leaf, attached to one stem. All of us combining our hearts of love, their source being the One who is Love Himself. Every individual leaf unique in it’s shape and design, but united to make the world a better, more beautiful place.
What do Love and Shamrocks have in common? They’re both a heart thing…
Happy (almost) St. Patrick’s Day!
