"All you need is love..."

Watching "Cold Case" last week -- regarding a case where back in the 1960's, a pregnant high-school girl was put in the nunery, so to speak. "St. Mary's Home for Un-wed Mothers" was the name of the place, I believe. Of course, there were plenty of old-school nuns, down to the habits. (I thoroughly expected wooden rulers to come flying out at any moment. But I digress...) As a part of the arrangement at this "home for unwed mothers," the girl was expected to give up the child for adoption. Typically, the teen's aren't too enthused about the deal, and this victim was no exception...

As a part of convincing the young mother-to-be to sign the yet-to-be-born infant away, the chief nun hands the girl a piece of paper, and asks her to write down everything that another family could give her young baby on one side of the paper, and everything that she herself could give the child on the other. On the left were listed "mother, father, house, food, clothing, money..."

On the right side? Simply the word "love."

The first thing that crossed my mind wasn't anything sung by The Beatles (though that fell in the top 5), but instead a little bit of scripture, read at most weddings. I Corinthians 13. I'm partial to The Message paraphrase. Here's a few bits...

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy
but don't love,I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

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.

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.

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!
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.

It was true back in the 60's, and it's still true today. Money, house, car, school, opportunities, all play a role in making our lives easier. But both rich and poor have reaped the benefits of a simple four-letter word, and both have suffered dearly by the lack of that same simple word.