What's love got to do with it?

 I'm confused. . .

Truth be told I'm always just a tad confused.  My excuse is that I am creative and I need that part of my personality to make it work.

What am I confused about now?

For years I have enjoyed Advent.  I love the lighting of the candles on an Advent wreath that's a part of worship services on the four Sundays that precede Christmas.  I usually write a blog each week during Advent.  This year has been no exception.  And I have an Advent wreath in my home.

My confusion is that I thought this week was the week that we light the candle of love.  As I researched, thought, and prayed about what to write the word I found was PEACE.  Humph.  I wrote on Peace two weeks ago.

So ... here are my thoughts on LOVE.

It plays a vital role in the Christmas story.  Because of Joseph's love for Mary, he didn't stone (nor did he shun)  his betrothed when he learned that she was going to have a child (Matthew 1:18-19).  

Mary had a natural motherly love for Jesus as she carried Him in her womb.  I loved that way Max Lucado said it:  "Mary loaned her womb so that the Son of God could be born to walk among us and later die on the cross for our sins".  But I am getting ahead of my story.

Jesus focused His preaching on love throughout His ministry.  " You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 'This is the greatest and first commandments.  And a second is like it.  'You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22;37-39). 

And I believe love is the greatest of all the virtues that the Advent candles represent.  Love encompasses Jesus' entire purpose for being on earth.  

And as Sally told Charlie Brown  "That's what Christmas is all about".

I've been thinking of some expressions of love that I know of - some that happened at Christmas.  Our daddy gave our mother her engagement ring a week before Christmas in 1941.  That was 80 years ago.  Their love for God each other and their children remains dear to me.

When my children and I were in the early years of being a single-parent family my son raked leaves so he could purchase a used (would you believe a mid-forties device?) waffle iron for me.  Later he found a train for my home. That was something I had wanted when he was a little boy but never found the funds to make that purchase.   

And then there's the story of the Gift of the Magi.  You know the one by O. Henry when the young bride sold her hair to buy a chain for her husband's watch who sold his watch to buy clips for her hair.  Each sold the most valuable thing he owned in order to buy a gift for the other.

What's love got to do with it?

Everything!

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son" 

May your life have enough sunshine

so that  you will appreciate the shadows