But the Greatest of These is Love...

I just found out my cousin is pregnant today.  I am so very happy for her, but I told my husband I cannot wait until my initial reaction to that news is turned from heart-stopping, catch-my-breath to genuine excitement.  It may sound selfish for me to feel this way and I guess it really is.  Someone gives me excellent news about herself and I immediately think of myself?  That is the very definition of selfish, isn't it?  People often think that women who cannot have children are selfish, and I used to think that way myself.  I used to think, "why can't she just get over herself and be happy for her pregnant friend?"  But the thing is, that is exactly what I want to do.  I want to be genuinely excited for her.  I don't want the tears to fall when someone makes that big announcement.  I have this heart string that gets yanked when someone I'm close to gets that huge dream fulfilled. 

I guess what I always think is I cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't want children; I love them with every square inch of my heart.  I even remember wanting a baby brother growing up; I'd wish for him with each birthday candle I blew out.  I am the oldest out of all my cousins and with every one, I cherished each little moment even wanting to wake up in the middle of the night for feedings and change diapers.  I think I love the feeling of nurturing something so dependent on you.  To let that kind of love spill into someone else is a indescribable feeling.

I look forward to the day the love in my heart can be shared with a child.  But even now, reading that sentence, I realize I should love each person I pass.  Here's probably a familiar passage in 1 Corinthians.  It has been read so many times, I don't think people truly soak up the meaning.  Read each word separately and deliberately meditating on what God is telling each of us to do.  It's a good reminder for me to not wait for a child of my own, but to cherish each person I come in contact with as they are all children of God. 

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, 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 completeness comes, what is in part 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 the ways of childhood behind me.  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.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13