"He answered, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” ---Luke 10:27
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So yesterday was Thanksgiving (I hope yours was pleasant like ours!), but something else occured on Thursday.
What was that, you ask? Tom's and my 43rd wedding anniversary.
Oh my! Forty-three years have passed since our wedding and yet that white-lace-and-promises,-a-kiss-for-luck-and-we're-on-our-way day still remains vivid in our minds. No really, vivid.
How grateful am I to be growing older with this 'husband of my youth.' To have whole reams of treasurable memories from which to choose and cherish anytime.
Anyway.
Speaking of love ... I'd read probably 5 books about Heaven, but this past week I bought one via Kindle and wow! If I could only keep one 'Heaven book', this would be Imagine Heaven by John Burke.
It answered many questions, but more? This book reminds us of things easily forgotten in Today's so-distracting world. Here are a couple reminders:
"Love matters most to God because he is love at the core of his being ... God is also just, but his justice is his loving response to evil when it hurts the people he loves. ..
God must be our first love because only then can he teach us how to love others as he loves us... all other things we put first in our lives make bad gods that will let us down. We were made for God's love first. His love rightly orders all other loves.
'I clearly saw that every action, every decision and every human interaction impacts the bigger world in far more significant ways that we could ever be capable of appreciating.'
'I felt the presence of the Lord beside me and he asked in my spirit, ' ... 'What have you done with the life I gave you?'"
That last line? Haunting. To me, anyway.
Just a taste of this remarkable book which I couldn't put down and dreaded finishing. So when I did, I returned to the start and reread the (many) portions I'd yellow-highlighted.
Seriously, this isn't only a book describing Heaven, but one instructing us how to live our best prepatory life upon this temporary Earth. It feels (to me) kinda like a cheat sheet, in fact (I say that reverently).
Over and again, Imagine Heaven reminds us how God prefers that we live this life He breathed into us here. Most highly recommended, indeed.
"Let all that you do be done in love." --- 1 Corinthians 16:14
It's not just about 'being nice'. Doing what we can to help push back Today's darkness is also a form of God's love for His people.
"And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." ---Colossians 3:14
So God gave me a time of rest after our nephew and his wife left, for their visit wore me out more than I'd thought. And oh, I needed to rest my poor little plantar-fasciitis-ed foot.
But uh-oh.
Ol' Debra enjoyed her vacation a bit too much and stretched it past God's boundaries (I'm thinking) so He sent along this Youtube video which straightened me right up! ツ
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Speaking of Youtube, only this week did I discover that--sometimes-- you can speed-up people's speaking and so watch these videos quicker(!) Just click on 'settings' then 'playback speed.' (I find this fun. Your results may vary. heh.)
These were spiffy:
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Oh! And this Thanksgiving I found myself feeling especially grateful for each of you, my Readers. Thank-you for reading here, commenting and encouraging me!
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"For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15
A belated happy anniversary to you and Tom! Forty-three years-WOW-that's an accomplishment!
ReplyDeleteHow grateful am I to be growing older with this 'husband of my youth.'
ReplyDeleteA true blessing. 💙