love is...

We have a huge chalk board in our laundry/craft room. I mean really big. It's a whole wall. I spend a lot of time in my laundry room. No matter how hard I try laundry is a never ending job in my house. Just about the time I think I have conquered the piles, they are back again.

Anyway, this last week, I decided I needed a reminder of what love really is. What God's word says love is. I need to strive to love those I love more like God loves me. These last few weeks have been a little tough. Matt has been working six days a week, lots and lots of hours. It's been hard to have our whole family schedule upside down. I don't like feeling upside down. I also don't like having to do all the parenting. However, my sweet husband doesn't want to be working all of these hours, and isn't choosing to not be with us. He's being our provider. I know that I can't be selfish about how 'I' feel about this because it wouldn't be fair. So instead, I am trying to have the very best attitude that I can have, and be as loving to my kids and my husband as I can possibly be, and in return, despite the upside down nature of our lives right now, I am being blessed!

I had to stop myself at one point last Saturday while Matt was working his third straight weekend in a row from having a pity party. Having a pity party would do no good. He isn't having one. He's choosing to have a great attitude despite unfavorable working conditions, so I decided I would too.

Running a business, and being a full time Mama is a lot on one persons plate. There have been many days lately that there have been no fancy meals prepared... however we still sit and eat food, as a family, and say a blessing before we eat our meal. There are days I can't get to everything on my to-do list... but I still am able to always get something accomplished, and that is one less thing on the list for tomorrow. There have been a few days where feeling positive isn't always easy... but it's always worth it because my attitude is directly mirrored by my children's attitudes. As long as I have love, and I am giving love to those that I love, than life is never upside down. The older I get the more I realize that as long as I have the love of Jesus in my heart... my life is always right side up!

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 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. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 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 the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a 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.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.