Our Legacy of Love

We love because He first loved us.

Because we are loved, we love. Because the author of Love, the One who is Love, loved us by giving His very life for us, we are set free to freely give love.

The words above from I John 4:19 were printed on our wedding programs forty-two years ago this week. In our twenties, as we prepared for our wedding ceremony and hoped to capture the depth of what our special day would signify, these words came to our mind. Filled with gratitude to God for His Love and for the love we would celebrate together as husband and wife.

God's love is perfect, beyond our comprehension, and has no end. " ... Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:39)

And because of this never-ending, all-encompassing Love, we can live in the best of love. On the days when all is well, and love bubbles up, overflowing and spilling out everywhere. And also when life is difficult - when we feel helpless to love. In all these days, we are held tightly together by His Love. For we love, because He first loved us. 

His Love, in us - flowing out from our marriage to bless others. A never-ending supply of Love. For though we are imperfect, and weak, we are loved by a perfect God who through His Spirit in us, loves others through us.

"He died for everyone,

so that those who receive His new life

will no longer live for themselves.

Instead, they will live for Christ

who died and was raised for them."

(II Cor. 5:15)

A Legacy of Love - coming from the Source of Love, lived out day-by-day and moment-by-moment. A channel where this Love flows through us from the Source. Flowing through the imperfect and the weak - so that it is obvious that it is not our own, but it is His Love. Because He first loved us, we are free to love.

Thanking God for 42 years of living and loving as a couple - for the joys of love, for the lessons in love, and that we are blessed beyond measure to know the Source of Love.