Thought: Love makes itself known in the simplest way: a home-cooked meal, a family well-provided for, treasuring each hour and each day.
My family likes to tell each other, “I love you,” as one or the other goes out the door. Through the years, we’ve come to realize how important it is to say these words while we have each other near because time has a way of slipping through our fingers and when our loved ones are gone, of course, it’s too late. But, love doesn’t always have to be spoken. Showing is even better. And, opportunities to show that we care about each other abound.
Patience is a way of expressing love. In this hurry-up world, it’s so easy to become irritated and forget that taking the time to wait or listen isn’t wasted. I may be in a dwindling group of homemakers, but I’ve always thought that keeping a house that’s warm and inviting is a way of expressing love. A good, hot meal at the end of a busy day, clothes that are clean and hanging in the closet, all these are ways of saying, “I love you.”
But even these are not the most important expressions of caring. Just being there when someone needs to talk, listening without interrupting and really hearing what’s said, taking youngsters here and there, getting up to bring them home from a trip in the wee, small hours, waiting for the sound of the key in the lock when a teenager comes in from a date, hurrying to help when somebody has a flat tire or a little boy has a scraped knee, or a child achieves recognition for a job well-done, getting up to go to work to provide for a family when we’d really rather stay home–these are all ways of showing we care.
In fact, the day is filled with those ways. The Bible says that the words we say show what’s in our hearts. Now, that’s not a quote, but the idea is Scriptural. If we have love in our hearts, we’ll find ways to show it. My mother always made my dresses and she took painstaking care to be sure they fitted, that stitches were hidden, and the dress would be something I’d be proud to wear. And, I was. My sister was the same way. Although I can no longer wear those pretty clothes Mom and Sis made for me, several of them are still hanging in my closet because I can’t bear to give them away.
The weather may be rainy and chilly, as it is in NW Arkansas this morning, but we can make it bright for ourselves and for others by remembering the importance of love. And here’s the neatest thing–love is never wasted but has a way of returning to us, pressed down and running over.
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