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Are You Looking For an Enduring Love?
Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.
Psalm 136:26 (NIV)
When a child is born and they feel the comforting arms of their parents
they assume their love will be available to them forever. It should be,
but there are those children who are abused, mistreated and abandoned.
When a person falls in love and becomes engaged and marries, most couples
intend for love to last forever. But, after the wedding bells ring and
life becomes routine, people often change. Love frequently becomes
something less than the fantasy enduring story it was thought to be.
Love has many sides. Perhaps it is only that affection and other emotions,
for many people, falls under the name of love. When they find these
emotions come up short, their illusions of love is destroyed. They feel
cheated, used and deserted.
Everyone desires someone to love them, and to have someone to love. But
often that "loving feeling" last for only a short time before the light
begins to flicker and burn out.
Many people find love, or so called love, in all the wrong places. They
also loose it before it's really begun, while others throw it away.
Falling in love and staying in love, accepting love and growing in love
seems impossible for so many people. While other men and women never seem
to find true love at all.
Those of us who have been married for fifty years or
more have known the many phases of love. We usually have known the good,
the bad and ugly of the longevity of love. Yet, we, also, know the staying
power of enduring love. Even a good loving relationship has not been
perfect. Love between two devoted people has known imperfection in some
form or another at some time.
The only perfect love comes from our Heavenly Father above; He cares for
us with a perfect enduring love that began before we were born and last
for eternity. So if you are feeling unloved rest in the arms of Jesus and
bask in the most perfect enduring love you will ever know.
If you don't know how to love, read the Bible and read its description of
the word. Read how Jesus loved, and how he loved you enough to give His
life for you. Read how much God loved you that He gave His only Son to die
for you in spite of your imperfections and sins. Read how you are loved
enough that you are forgiven for your earthly iniquities when you ask for
forgiveness and seek to follow Jesus.
Read the whole chapter of Psalm 136; after every
verse it tells how God's love endures forever. Who else can promise such a
perfect love that will endure, from before birth, until forever?
Are you feeling unloved? Pick up your Bible, read it from cover to cover
and see how much you are loved. Perhaps you might want to look in the
concordance of your Bible, under love, and read only a few scriptures at a
time. Either way, wrap yourself in the arms of love.
Prayer: God, help me never to forget I am loved with an enduring love that
will last for eternity. Help me to return that love and help me to show it
through my obedience to You. Help me, also, to love others sincerely with
a love you approve of.
(c) Betty King 2008
baking2@charter.net
www.bettyking.net
Betty King is a Life Style and Devotional newspaper columnist. She has
lived with MS for over forty years;
she is an author of: It Takes Two Mountains to Make a Valley, But-It Was
in the Valleys I Grew, The Fragrance of Life, and Safe and Secure in the
Palm of His Hand; they can be ordered from your local book stores, on line
or from her website
www.bettyking.net or contact Betty. She, also has stories in eleven of
the Chicken Soup book series.
Chicken Soup:
Betty has stories in the following Chicken Soup books: Mother
and Daughter Soul, Recovering Soul, Grandma's Soul, Recovering
Soul Inspirations, Mother and Son's Soul, Women Golfer's Soul,
Chicken Soup: Love Stories (to be released in Feb.), Beach
Lover's Soul, Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas, Working
Mom's Soul, Coffee Lover's Soul. |
