We’ve Always Had Enough

We’ve always had enough.
Never too much.
Sometimes barely enough.
But enough.

He’s been my one and only.
My farmer.
Though, not perfect, we’ve made our way.
We’ve known heartache and pain, and joy and contentment.

 

People scoff at Valentine’s Day.
Poking fun.
Seeing it as an over inflated, embellished, money making scheme.

I’m enchanted.
Enchanted by my farmer.
Uniquely creating a fun day.
The farming way.
I may never have had a fancy dinner, jewelry or gifts.
Most days I was so exhausted from work, kids, farm work, house work, etc to even remember.

But he has never forgotten.
In the wee hours of the morning.
While the world sleeps.

He creates.

He’s made hearts in the snow.
A heart painted from Plywood standing against the trampoline.
He’s strung cut out paper hearts on the laundry line.
On a year when there was so much snow, he hung cut out hearts all over the dining room;
strung from one end of the room to the other, hearts taped all over the walls.

We haven’t had much.
But we’ve had enough.
The road hasn’t been easy.
It still isn’t.
Yet, we trust.
We believe in a Mighty God.
A God who created love.
Love, in the New American Standard Version of the bible, is mentioned, 348 times.
133 in the Old Testament.
215 in the New.
Love is important.

Jeremiah 31:3
The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

I Corninthians 13

If I speak in the tongues^a of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If 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. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^b but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love 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. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.11When 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. 12For 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.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Where ever you are in your relationship today.
Read through this Chapter on love.
The list is so counter to our culture today.
There is a list of the attributes of love.
Demonstrate these to your spouse.
Show these in your relationships.

I have a long way to go.
I get hung up on the first one.
Love is patient.

I am quick to want things done.
I am a procrastinator, which makes patience something of  an oxymoron.

Write these verses down.
Hold them close to your heart.

Learn to live in this way.

God will meet us.
He longs for his people to love.
He longs for his people to repent; to reconcile ourselves to Him, to the cross.

May this Valentine’s Day be enough, for you.

Ephesians 1:7
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,
in accordance with the riches of God’s grace