Corners of love
Paul ended off his brief marriage enrichment seminar with a simple proposal: 33… a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband. And the opposite is also true: Every wife must love her husband as she loves herself. The net effect? More and more love flows in our lives.
Johan tells me about another friend of mine, August Basson, who came to minister to them in Grabouw. He wanted to teach the children something about love. He took an A4-size sheet of paper and asked the children to count the number of corners. All of them immediately wrote down 4.
He said each corner represented love. When you show love to others, you actually give a piece of yourself and one of the corners is taken away. He then took a pair of scissors to cut off the piece of love that was given to others from the A4 sheet of paper.
He then asked the children how many corners there were. Aha, now there are 5 – one more corner to give love! Instead of there being one corner less because you gave one away, an extra corner is added!
And in a way it works like that when we give love to others – more and more is added to share with others. Real love doesn’t run out.
I know it’s not always easy. I know that others often mess around with the love we give them, but love doesn’t wait for the right moment. Love doesn’t ask if the others deserve it. No, love gives just like that, and the net effect is that another corner is added to give away again and again.
Maybe we should go and try this. Let’s go and experiment with giving love, see how the corner is cut off, just so that another can be added. Let’s then see if we can share more love. I suspect our love will never run out. That is how God has made us. Because as they say, you cannot outgive God.
Reflection
Are you struggling to share love?
Are you prepared to practice?
Where will you start doing it today?
Prayer
Jesus, You taught us about giving and giving and giving love. Please help us to do it too and to live your love that never runs out everywhere we go. Amen
