Love Is Kind

I watched as a friend of mine gave gentle assistance to an aging relative at the care home. The patient's memory is failing now, and the weekly visits are sometimes not even remembered. The promised inheritance to my friend has long since been depleted, spent on the care the elder did not anticipate needing.

I went away, pondering the situation. I decided I would question my friend, "Do you really love Sylvia, or are you just being kind?" With a start of realization, I asked myself, "But is there really a difference?"

We are so accustomed to equating love with warm, fuzzy feelings or with excited energy or with comfortable sameness that we sometimes give little thought to the real meaning. The defining chapter of Scripture in regard to love (I Corinthians 13) does not identify different characteristics for different forms of love. That is, God's love for us, the love of parents for their children, and romantic love do not have separate sets of traits. Different forms of love are expressed differently, but they bear the same qualities.

And here is how I see it in my friend—warm, fuzzy feelings or not.

"Love is patient," listening to the same stories of times past
     over and over again.
"Love is kind," helping in gentle ways, explaining the institution rules softly.
"It does not envy," although others may not share the responsibilities.
"It does not boast," calling attention to her sacrifices.
"It is not self-seeking," ignoring personal expenditure of time,energy,
     and funds.
"It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres,"
     because, she told me, she had years ago made a commitment
     to "see to things" when the older lady no longer could.
     (from I Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV))

Jesus said—twice in one teaching—in regard to those who made false claims about belonging to His Kingdom, "You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions." (Matthew 7:16, 20)

In the dictionary, one listing for "love" is as a noun. In real life, it has to be a verb. Love is what I do and what I say. There is little real difference, I decided, between "really loving" and "just being kind."

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Scripture quotation marked NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotation marked NLT is 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