Reader Appreciation: The Best Part

1 Corinthians says that love is kind, endures all things, believes all things.  Part of me thinks that 1 Corinthians 13 is written in response to the question, "But wait, what is love, anyway?"

Well, Love is the best part.

Love is helping a friend complete his lifelong dream of running up the Rocky steps: "You know, this is the best thing I'm doing here, and it didn't even cost any money."

Love is the moment when you finish a friend's sentence.

Love is watching someone you love watch someone they love and making you love the person they love because you love them and they love you.

Love is watching the snow fall, cover over the mud, and highlight the colors of the earth.

Love is the moment you say, "I hope you know that you don't have to do that for me [I love you as you are.]"

Love is realizing that you've been on the phone for an hour.

Love is a warm meal on a cold day being shared in a friendly place to anyone that's hungry.

Love is the last night Jesus spent with his twelve best friends sharing a deeply meaningful (and delicious!) meal and then encouraging them for five chapters. 

Love is community:

Love is sitting in Babycakes with friends on a chilly fall evening sharing laughs and music.

Love is realizing that my nightstand drawer is brimming with notes of encouragement from my friends and family.

Love is because He loved us first.

Love is sharing encouraging words written by 50 students with a 72 year-old-woman so focused on serving Jesus that she often forgets herself.  When she finished reading she wiped a tear from her eye and said, "I feel so precious."

And in the greatest act of love, the Greatest of These became the Least of These so that everyone may be encouraged.

So, love is encouragement to the precious!  And so, I am filled with love because I am surrounded by people who have stuck by me, who have listened to me and encouraged me to follow my passions, who have wanted my happiness, who have allowed me to love them, who have told me that I can write, who have told me that I am funny, who have listened to me talk about goodness only knows what; you have made me know that I am loved- and precious.  May I do the same.

Here is the least I can express:
Thank you.