"Love Covers..."

Mom's Kitchen. This is the room that I have done most of my loving in over a fifty year period. Remember the old television commercial from the sixties from Pillsbury, "Nothin' says lovin', like somethin' from the oven, &..." this is where I would put instead, ".... Mom/Grandmother says it best!" 

Boy oh boy, the thousands of meals I've cooked, the thousands of loaves of bread, candies, pies, cakes, cookies, desserts, etc., I've baked, shaked & maked!  (😊 a little non-word license here!), for family, friends, church functions, wedding receptions, school functions, funerals, graduations, birthdays, holidays, supper parties, picnics, the fund raisers, teenager parties, (boy can those kids eat!) Ladies Teas, (big & little), my Meals on Wheels people, nursing homes, & on & on! But I have always loved my kitchen time cooking because it's how I express my love for whoever I'm cooking for, even if I don't know them. & I can pray for individuals that I cook for as I'm cooking, for the grieving, the joyful, the troubled, the discouraged, the weary, the hurting, & the just plain hungry. Food is a basic need, true, but it feeds the hearts needs also, because the language of cooking takes time, energy, creativity & even sacrifice. It's a language of love.  Did you ever think of cooking that way? All of that kitchen time that homemakers, mothers, grandmothers have never thought of, the many ways that cooking has been used by the Lord, through us, to make a difference in our corner of the world because everyone eats. Everyone. Talk about job security! At almost 72 years old, there's still a lot of  daily oven lovin' in my kitchen! & isn't it blessed to know that we lovers through our culinary efforts, are indispensable? & it's being passed on because all six of our daughters are good cooks. I have to say, I have loved putting my feet under their tables!                                
🍲😋🍲😋🍲😋🍲😋🍲😋

               There are other ways of course of loving people, but this is one that I love doing so I spent extra time on it.

Now, as for the different expressions of His love, Jesus said there is no greater love than to lay down ones lives for a friend. But define friend. The Good Samaritan was a friend to the beaten up man beside the road. I remember more than once different men stopped to help me when I had a flat tire alongside a busy highway. What about the person you didn't know that secretly paid for your lunch? Or bought groceries for you when there was no food in the house?   or paid an over-due bill for you, bought gas for your car, spoke a word of kindness or encouragement that changed the direction of your life? Because of back issues I have started using a cane when I go out, & I am surprised & blessed by people of all ages, even teenagers, who open the door, let me go ahead of them even when they were ahead of me, will carry something for me, & defer to me in all kinds of situations. I have to say I feel a little sheepish at times because it is due to pain & not some physical handicap or sickness. ( At a checkup a doctor told me I suffered from TMB.😵 "Too Many Birthdays." he explained. Don't you love a Dr. with a sense of humor?!😏 It's pretty rare!) But it's the kindness of people that matters. It's called loving your neighbor as you love yourself. Which is what Jesus said sums up the whole law.             But here is the expression of love that has become the most beloved to me that the Lord gave me revelation on just last week. I'm sure we have all been to funerals or memorials or read obituaries of people we know personally, that upon death have suddenly become canonized or saints, when we know that in life they were anything or everything but. Recently, in reading an obituary, I couldn't believe what I was reading about a particular woman & all of her saintly qualities, the perfect mother & grandmother, & Christian. What??! You are kidding me!! The writer certainly didn't know her like I did!!!  Wow...pretty prideful. Well, the Lord thought so too. Time for lesson in humility 101. This is how the conversation went.

Jesus: "Did you love her?"

Me: Yes.

Jesus: "Let me rephrase that. Did you love her as I loved her? Did you love her as her family loved her?"

Me, head hung in shame: "No".

Jesus: "Love, true love, covers a multitude of sins. You do not love her truly, that's why all you could see were her sins. I love her truly, so I saw her as she was in my identity, whether it was ever completely accomplished or not on earth. She was & is one of mine. & I always saw her as finished. & she was beautifully covered in that. Some others saw that too. But not you."

& then I had the revelation of why, at so many funerals & memorials, only good things are said about the one who has left this world. Because we want to cover the uglinesses, the little meanesses , the mistakes, the sins of those we love. This is the "blessed are those who are merciful, for they shall receive mercy". We don't want the world to look on the nakedness of that sacred humanity that although created in the image of God, sometimes failed, even greatly. As we all have.  & maybe the realization of that  kills some of our pride in the process that they didn't live up to how we think they should have. Ugly, ugly pride. 

But let me tell you what blesses my heart even more. The kind of love that covers in the most magnificent way. The kind that the obituary was laced with. The kind that we hear during memorials. The kind that gives new eyesight. Not that love is blind. But love, true love, sees like Jesus sees. & makes the object of love beautiful. All of us in truth, not reality, but truth, with Jesus "He-Arose" tinted glasses, will see others, living on earth or in heaven, as beautiful. That's the true woman, the true man, created  in God's image. When Jesus came, He brought His identity with Him. & it's our identity too. "Love covers a multitude of sins." (First Peter 4:8)  Love that covers, or maybe another way to put it, love that doesn't remember, or if it does, fragrances the hurt of the memory with grace & mercy, thereby erasing any sting of suffering. Then,

           "I can see clearly now, the rain (or false) has gone...  🎵". In that situation, I was the one who was blind. Because the family saw through eyes of love, they could really see who the loved one truly was, not in her frail humanity. The eyes of true love is the only true eyesight & epitaph we all want written or spoken when our journey is over.   After the reprimand from the Lord, & much repentant weeping, He blessed me with this revelation which has changed my hearts perspective. I want to see & be seen through His love that covers, His He-Arose tinted glasses, too, certainly not through my used-to-be-near, or rather, false-sightedness.  His love does cover;  even me. & I am forever grateful.          

Raintree Perk of the Day:

"I have loved you with an everlasting love..."

Isn't it sweet to be beautiful in that love & in His eyes?