Let Your face shine on Your servant; save me in Your unfailing love. Psalm 31:16.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by. Psalm 57:1 NKJV.

O taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who trusts and takes refuge in Him. Psalm 34:8.

As we read our chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, remember there are no chapters. This is a letter to us all. And I show you a still more excellent way…If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three…but the greatest of these is love.

And as I was typing these words for you, I couldn’t help but marvel that this is describing Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit. God is love. He knows my fears and insecurities. He knows I look in a mirror and see a face where wrinkles are growing deeper and more pronounced and yet, still, I feel very much like the child I used to be afraid to make a mistake. Being the youngest I was so eager to grow up and yet everything felt so very big to me. And now my fears for my loved ones and for this world are too big for me. But now faith, hope, love – abide these three…but the greatest of these is love. I will abide with my God and rest in His love and His care and trust that He is with me always…and not just with me but with all of us as we live this life in this broken place too big for us. But take heart and courage. Our God is here and He is love. We are in His hands.