(4 a.m. is a magical hour in time.)
i was looking around my room and i noticed the christmas present i made for ginger not long ago, which quotes part of a scripture i love. and in french (so i double love it).
"...car l'amour parfait bannit toute crainte."
sometimes that phrase will be a repeating song in my head that i've listened to a hundred times (in both languages), and i always wonder what it could mean.
naturally, perfect love in our heavenly father; perfect love in christ. these kinds of love casteth out fear, for with this perfect love, we have faith. we have faith in them and how they will keep their promises to us and bless us. "fear and faith cannot coexist in our hearts at the same time." we could even turn that around and say that the perfect love they have for us helps to cast out the fear in our lives.
but what about love for other people?
perfect itself doesn't mean what we think it means in society. we've distorted so much what perfect really is: complete. finished. fully developed.*
of course, we can't be perfect in this life. we're human. we make mistakes. that's why we have the atonement to lift us up when we humanly fall. but what about having perfect love?
can we perfectly love our children? our friends? the people we serve? can a husband perfectly love a wife, and vice versa?
and maybe it comes down to this: we can't have perfect love for those people all the time. there will be moments when my dad irritates me and in my imperfect state i say something i regret. there will be moments when my friends break promises and i feel hurt. there will be moments i forget to serve with full purpose of heart.
but can we have it sometimes?
is it possible for us to have perfect love for people?
is it possible for us to have perfect love for people?
i feel the very fact that we have the ability to love shows how much god loves us.** and because He's full of so much abounding and abiding love for every one of us individually, and because He's a perfected being, perhaps our love isn't perfect all the time, but has glimpses of perfection. moments where we are closer to heavenly father and jesus christ because we are loving [as much as we can] like they do.
perhaps that's why i love that scripture so much.
because there are so many hopeful things that come from those seven words.
*click on the actual word "perfect." you'll see its definition.
** please read that whole chapter. not because i want to preach to you, but because that chapter fills me with so much hope and happiness i couldn't not tell you to read it.
perhaps that's why i love that scripture so much.
because there are so many hopeful things that come from those seven words.
*click on the actual word "perfect." you'll see its definition.
** please read that whole chapter. not because i want to preach to you, but because that chapter fills me with so much hope and happiness i couldn't not tell you to read it.
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