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Real Love


            Real love is not possessive. Real love is not jealous. Real love gives freedom. Real love involves trust and acceptance.


            If you really love your children, you will not ‘place your trip’ on them. When it is their time to go about their own lives, let them go. It is not their place to fulfill your life. It is their place to live their own life. Let them go. Do not hope that they will become what you wish you had become. Hope they will become what God wishes they become.


            If you really love your wife, then allow her to do that which pleases her, not what shows others that she is your obedient spouse. Do not restrict her movements, contacts with other people, or personal space. If you really love her, then you will not only allow her to be herself, but even encourage it. If she abuses this trust then that is her fault not yours. If you cannot live with that, then that is your problem.


            Change the sex in the above paragraph and re-read it.


            As blind men, we do not know what the elephant looks like on the outside. How can we know the heart of the elephant?


             If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
             Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
             Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Corinthians 13 1-13

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copyright© 2007 George L Snyder