Tomorrow is George’s day. I’ve had so many things on my mind and to do list these last few weeks, that I’ve pretty much stifled any feelings or anticipation. It’s easier that way, most times. But whether or not I’m ready, February 10 always arrives and leads us into February 11th and then all the rest of the 365 days that make up a year.
I’ve struggled a lot this year with facing his day. I haven’t wanted to think about it much. Heck, it’s tomorrow and I haven’t even gonna grocery shopping for dinner or birthday supplies. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to give anything beyond moments of consideration to it.
But tomorrow won’t wait. And because my God is a good God, he has brought people around me in this season and in the many that have led up to it, to take off the mental load. To plan for dinner or to send a text remembering our sweet boy. To check in on me, on us, as we face this day. Because it’s not all bad. Grief is here because we lost someone we love, but it wouldn’t have been lost love if there hadn’t been love in the first place. And that, my dear friends, is the greatest gift God has given us apart from our salvation.
”If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If 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. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love 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. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When 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. For 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. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.“
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NIV
