Points of Light, just four letters, love isn't hard to spell, nor is love hard to pronounce. A word that comes to mind when love is spelled or spoken is "others". Filled with awesome light and so full of color, the majestic beauty of this bible passage makes it clear why others are the focus of love's attention... "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." At the end of the chapter where this passage is encountered, we find this being said, "Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love." Now, while these three words reside within you and me, and while we tenaciously strive to make them real and evident in our lives lived, all three words have the same intentionality that A.W. Tozer used to describe faith, "Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all.” Of course, the simplest way Tozer could have said that would have been to simply say, "Others".
I've often wondered after the meaning of others. I've pondered on how it works and operates. I've squinted and strained while searching it out. I've wanted to know and understand others so that I might myself attain the thing I want most to always find... beauty.
I've finally found "others" and she's continually by my side. I've never known someone so full of thinking thoughts about what she can do for him and what does she need, that is, not until I found Angela. While I've always observed otherly love in her, this Christmas she's allowed others to be her constant beacon of light. My heart needs you to know how I find more colors than I can name in her projected beacon of light and for this, I'm blessed to afford the most astonishing beauty I've ever known... I'm awestruck by my wife! You see, while I've been busy at working hard and detangling the way a life lived usually gets messed up in my head, Angela has checked our Christmas list not once, but several times and found everyone has been nice. She's been full of otherly love when she found out little kids had been told there was no Santa Clause and she pushed herself to make sure those kids received letters and pictures from the man himself. She even made sure he visited a couple of them (she cried when she once thought he wouldn't show up). Even though so many people were on that list of ours, I can honestly tell you every one of them was dotted over. Then for all these people, yesterday a lot of work was done by her to wrap all those presents. Did I forget to mention the hundreds of dollars she's spent on Christmas and then soothed my wounded ego and detangled the clutter in my head about said hundreds of dollars? Well, otherly love allowed her to accomplish that too, and thank God.
So, rather you say "love" or "others", or combine them to say "otherly love", "It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence." This is precious beauty my wife affords me to take the pleasure of experiencing 24/7/365, but Christmas is an awesome time to talk about that four-letter word simply spelled L - O - V - E.
Love and Peace,
Tod w/only one d
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