I have three daughters. Birthed one (back in 1985) and gloriously gained two others when they married my drop dead gorgeous sons (excuse a little “mother bias” here),

They’re each different. Different backgrounds, different personalities and different stories. But what they all have in common is “love”. This little blog (written poolside whilst on holiday in Australia) is inspired by an Instagram one of them posted of her “smooching her new baby son”.

I’m sure we would all agree that LOVE has a myriad of faces, and that love can represent a world of emotion, expression and experience. To be honest this isn’t intended to explore or dissect the magnitude of the world’s loveliest four-letter world – it’s simply to stimulate a hunger (this coming year) to know LOVE in its truest form.

The Bible boldly declares that of faith, hope and love, love is the GREATEST, and the Gospel can effectively be told in one powerful verse – for God SO LOVED the world that He gave his one and only Son (John 3:16).

My personal experience of LOVE is that it answers, rescues and restores. It responded to my enquiry when I couldn’t understand the meaning of life nor the divide that death brought when my father died. It rescued me from a sense of emptiness; unreasonable in a young girl with her whole life before her -and it instilled a sense of purpose that hasn’t diminished with the passage of years.

I’ve walked in the shadow of LOVE for near 42 years and I know that it prevails and perseveres and never disappoints. I know it can cast a more powerful shadow over the shadow of fear and evil – and can walk us into places, fields and opportunities we never imagined possible.

LOVE is endless because love isn’t merely a “four-letter word”. Love is a force that issues from Above and is the essence, character and person of God Himself.

LOVE is something to be entered into and discovered for an eternity and more – and my Aussie/summertime/vacation/poolside prayer is that we will all awaken even more to TRUE LOVE in 2014.

Somewhere in my world of social media I saw a sign that said, “WHAT THIS WORLD NEEDS IS A GIANT HUG!” The kind of hug that doesn’t judge or assess, but instead simply allows another to know that they are not alone and that regardless they are loved… because ultimately at the end of the day, that’s what LOVE does, right!

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 MSG
[1] “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

[2] If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

[3-7] If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. LOVE never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

[8-10] Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

[11] When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. [12] We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

[13] But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to LEAD US TOWARD that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is LOVE”

Bobbie