<\/p>\n
\u201cLove suffers long and is kind . . .\u201d (1 Corinthians 13:4).<\/p>\n
IT IS NOTHING SHORT OF AMAZING HOW HEAVY A BURDEN LOVE CAN BEAR AND HOW LONG IT CAN BEAR IT. I once knew a woman who had never had any life as an adult except the life of taking care of her mother. Her mother was a quadriplegic with no one else to care for her, so the daughter had forgone marriage and any kind of independence just to take care of her mother. When I knew this dear woman, she had been doing this for over thirty years.<\/p>\n
Love does not give up on people.<\/em> Love doesn\u2019t do difficult work for a \u201crespectable\u201d period of time and then give it up. It hangs in there and, if necessary, endures indefinitely.<\/em> In the real world, people and their problems can be exhausting. So we try to help them for a while, but if they don\u2019t shape up pretty quickly, we have a tendency to write them off as losses. But love suffers long. It knows how to keep waiting when waiting is hard.<\/p>\n Love has a long fuse.<\/em> Just as love does not \u201cgive up\u201d easily, it does not \u201cgive in\u201d easily to things like unkindness and ungentleness. It keeps acting kindly long after others would have started behaving unkindly. \u201cMeekness\u201d is sometimes defined as \u201cstrength under control,\u201d and I think that describes the idea very well. The kind person is not weak; his strength is simply being controlled more carefully than is the unkind person\u2019s. It is true, as Eric Hoffer said, that \u201crudeness is the weak person\u2019s imitation of strength.\u201d<\/p>\n I wish we could see the deadly seriousness of the \u201clittle\u201d things we call irritability, grouchiness, touchiness, peevishness, and so forth. These are not little sins. If we do not repent of them and learn the laws of charity, they will carry us straight to hell.<\/p>\n If nothing else produces patience in our dealings with others, we at least ought to be moved by our Lord\u2019s patience with us. How long has the Lord waited and waited and waited for some of us to get rid of certain sins and weaknesses? How many times has He forgiven us of repeated offenses? \u201cIf You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?\u201d (Psalm 130:3). Why does He put up with us? It is only because He loves<\/em> us. How is it then that we can claim to love others and be so short-tempered and unkind?<\/p>\n \u201cPatient endurance is the perfection of charity\u201d (Ambrose).<\/p>\n Gary Henry \u2013 WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com<\/p>\n