There is a word from The Lord

Today, I will preach. Today, at the 11:00 service, I will stand up with knees knocking and feet freezing and I will preach. I have done this before, but every time that I preach, something happens to me. When I write my sermon, there is a process that kicks in. I write, laugh, sing and weep. I sometimes cry so hard that I have to move away from the computer so that I don't short it out. Last night, I wrote, I read, I laughed and I saved the document one last time and then I went to bed. And I wept. I mean, scare the neighbors weeping. I was alone with the sermon on love. I was alone in my bed with my cold toes and heavy heart. I wept, sobbed, whimpered and tried to lift my head off of that pillow but was left to literally wallow in my tears. Today, those tears will preach. Today, the word of Love will come through and come forth. Today, I will joke about football but I will preach about love. The love that attends when you are crying alone in bed at night. The love that hides a multitude of sins. The love that pulls you upright when you have been bowed over for 18 years. The love that raises the roof and lowers you into a healing place. The love that offers not silver or gold, but healing. The love that pulses through a heart from the first beat to the last. The love that needs nothing but an invitation and an exhortation. The love that refills when we feel empty...like I did last night....all alone...with my cold toes and heavy heart. Today, I will preach. I will preach in, on, and through the invisible yet invincible LOVE that, as my friend Valerie says, attends me.

I Corinthians 13
13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I am loved and therefore, I love.
Shalom