The Source of Love

"We become truly personal by loving God and by loving other humans... In its deepest sense, love is the life, the energy, of the Creator in us." - Kallistos Ware

Today is a day of love, Valentine’s Day.  It is a day to express to all those most important people in your life how important and loved they are.  There will be flowers, chocolates, diamonds, cards, and much, much more given as tokens of love as we observe this highly celebrated day.

According to Wikipedia, Valentine’s Day has quite a history starting back in 496 AD honoring one or more Christian martyrs.  The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").

I once told my Mom she was my very first Valentine, and on earth she was.  But the source of love, my Father in Heaven is truly my very, very first Valentine.  He gave me life, pursued, and courted me until the day I accepted his son Jesus Christ as my savior.  That day I was bound forever into a never ending love story with my maker.

Very few acknowledgements are made regarding the love of God on Valentine’s Day, and that is sad because God IS love.  “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  1 John 4:8

He is the very essence of love and longs to have relationships with His children (us) and for us to having loving relationships with others.  We are commanded to even love our enemies.  It IS our purpose for being here.

The sweet love shown on Valentine’s Day should not be confined to just one day.  Just think of how much more successful our marriages and relationships would be if the source of love, God, is where we went to draw strength in reaching out to others. 

“We love because he first loved us.”  1 John 4:19

Bee Mine

It takes a bee to get the honey out. ~ Arthur Guiterman

One month closer to planting time in Texas and I’ve been thinking over problems with gardens I have had in the past few years.  In the good ole days when my gardening efforts were rewarded with big beautiful vegetables, I remember harvesting early in the mornings and how the bees would already be out there with their noses in the blooms, buzzing around spreading the pollen.  The last couple of years I have noticed very few bees and I do believe this is the reason I am not getting the bounty I once had. 

In 2010, Fox News reported that Texas Tech is taking a lead role in research to determine why the nation's bee population is collapsing.  Seems the culprit in the bee decline is most likely a virus that has been on a rampage since 2006 and one researcher indicates this virus is responsible for devastating bee populations by the billions.  Other factors play into it as well such as environmental change-related stresses, malnutrition, and pesticides.  Not good.

Albert Einstein once said: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

Bees are quite often seen as pests to the average joe, but the reality is that they are vital in the world of agriculture.  People who know the whole story of how every creature is  important to the balance of nature understand that everything has a purpose.  They are not cuddly, lovable little insects like the ladybug, in fact their sting can be quite painful, but without them we might well go hungry.

Valentine’s Day is approaching and I have been thinking over problems in relationships that I have been facing over the last few years.  Relationships are hard, bottom line.  Some people are just hard to love, and I think of them as the “bees” in my garden.  They swarm in to steal the sweetness from where I want to bloom and if I get in their way, they sting me, sometimes over and over again.  My first inclination is to just get rid of them, one way or another.  But through much soul searching and prayer, I have determined that God uses these bees to pollinate different areas of my life.  He uses my bees to help me bloom more profusely in other areas.  He covers the stings with grace so they don’t hurt so much the next time.  Soon I am able to recognize that these bees have a place in my life, that I can learn to work in harmony alongside of them, and that the pollen they spread around is vital to kindle and ripen the fruits of the spirit.

Save the bees!

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”- Galatians 5:22-23