Love Endures

Michelangelo, the great Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor, saw inside each block of rough marble a sculpture, waiting to be freed by his tools. His job, he felt, was simply chipping away all that was not part of the statue, releasing it.

Sometimes we find ourselves in relationships where we feel like that sculptor. Others do not necessarily see what we see; even the person himself/herself may not recognize their potential. We see the person that is really in there and we want them to be released—free and beautiful. Sometimes, though, even when we have invested much of ourselves in the relationship and have been a significant portion of that life, the outcome is not the strong and balanced person we had so hoped to see. It might be our child, our spouse, a parent, or a close friend—and, to be honest, we are disappointed. So what do we do?

We love anyway. “Love may make the world go ‘round,” but it cannot always change the way things are. Lack of understanding, stubbornness, or just plain arrogance may keep the person from yielding to the tools that every person’s life—and God Himself—bring to shape and train us. That is his/her choice. We cannot force the decision.

“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.” (I Corinthians 13:4-7)

I carve a monument of stone;
Chips fly to free the marble form inside,
When, unexpected, a sharp blow reveals
What was not visible before:
A crevice hid within the rock.

I’ll not return the stone so deeply flawed,
Though it was given to me as whole,
But rather make a work of art none would have dreamed.
I take up molten gold, I fill the wound,
And smooth the costly flow around the scar.

When I complete the work someday,
All will acclaim the beauty of that vein
And think an artist planned it so,
And only I will ever know
That love can cover any sin. –MM

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Read the article Love Wins here

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com