Wisdom – Sunshine Lane

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As we near Valentines Day this week, I realized how much my perspective on love has changed and grown since I was 20 and got married for the first time. Back then, these verses seemed to reveal the fluttery, passionate, fairy tale love.

Now that I’m 57 and have lived through the good, the bad, and the ugly of several relationships, these verses reveal themselves to be describing God’s great, deep, abiding love for US. God’s love for us is also the model of what true love really IS. It isn’t just about romantic love at all. Rather, it is how we love everyone we encounter and how we treat them. Despite what popular culture says, life is not all about us! Truthfully, it’s not about us at all!

This business of life is about loving everyone else no matter who they are—rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, intelligent, silly, tall, short, skinny, plump, black, white, yellow, or purple! If we learn how to love as God loves us, most of our problems, fears, and insecurities will vanish. Approach everyone with love and guess what? You’ll have so much love in your life, you’ll feel like you’re literally glowing with it. Ok, I’ll let the verses speak to you now. God’s writers say everything better, in fewer words too! Ha!

I LOVE all of you and pray this Valentine season that you’ll feel all the love showered on you every day and that you will pass that love onto others!

Dory Dee

1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (BBE)

1 If I make use of the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am like sounding brass, or a loud-tongued bell.

2 And if I have a prophet’s power, and have knowledge of all secret things; and if I have all faith, by which mountains may be moved from their place, but have not love, I am nothing.

3 And if I give all my goods to the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it is of no profit to me.

4 Love is never tired of waiting; love is kind; love has no envy; love has no high opinion of itself, love has no pride;

5 Love’s ways are ever fair, it takes no thought for itself; it is not quickly made angry, it takes no account of evil;

6 It takes no pleasure in wrongdoing, but has joy in what is true;

7 Love has the power of undergoing all things, having faith in all things, hoping all things.

green wooden board with heart hole

Uptight, skinny white girl,
just 23 years old,
I thought I had it all figured out,
and told my co-worker so.

“I’d never do that, or that,
and heaven knows, never that!”
I said, with a self-righteous look,
and right then, I think,
my path was set to run,
not straight, but with
many bends and crooks.

Sure enough, a few years later,
my marriage ended,
my heart was broken,
and that was just the beginning,
of the furies I’d awoken.

Love affairs, I had a few,
some were simply convenient,
but one I thought was really true.
However, he was young,
and wild and free.
I was a single mom,
so he wasn’t right for me.
Again, my heart was broken,
I gave up and said,
“No more men,
I’m through!”

Then came the biggest challenges,
I fell in love again,
and Lord have mercy,
then the trials began!
This man had some problems,
my kids were in their teens,
my mother was dying slowly,
and then my father did the same.
I helped to care for them,
all while working in between.

With God’s help and steady hand,
He lead me safely through,
and as I made it to the other side,
I learned a thing or three or two.

I wondered where and why I erred,
and called myself the very worst of fools,
but then my dad he told me,
a few days before he died,
“I always thought you crazy,
you let your heart lead all the way,
but now I’m really grateful,
because you cared for your Mother
and me, every single day.
If you had lead your life with your head,
as I always wanted you to do,
where would I be now,
without your heart leading you?”

So, yes, I’ve made mistakes,
had my heart ache many times,
I’m not rich or famous,
but what I have is mine.
I have a loving, healthy family now,
and sweet memories to hold near,
I wouldn’t change a thing,
for the lessons I hold dear.

This poem came about from a prompt made by Grace at the dVerse blog:

For this prompt, think of a mistake you’ve made. Think of what you learned from it or maybe how you thought it was the end of the world and it surprised you by turning out okay or bringing something exquisite into existence. Or, think of how it stretched you beyond your wildest imagination or how you would now say, with the benefit of hindsight, you’d actually regret not having made that ‘mistake’ in your life. Share something serious or funny….make us cry or laugh or teach us something from your own experience of mistake-making.

Go here to read more from dVerse! They’re awesome!

https://dversepoets.com