Corona Devo 3051

I'm not always so good with names and numbers…especially numbers, which (for me) includes dates.

For instance, I can't remember all the details--such as exactly what year it was, or which North Carolina beach-city we were staying in the Summer that our (extended) family rented a 30-plus person house to vacation-in, all together.  

Together-in-one-house is a beautiful idea and memory for vacation...unless someone gets really sick with a contagious stomach-bug…which is what happened to us.  To all (thirty) of us.  And what I do remember is that it was our child that started the sickness-cycle.  

The details are foggy for me, but there were people that fainted, an uncle that spent the night in a bathtub, cars that pulled over for people to exit and vomit, and lots (and lots) of bodily functions that went awry during that week of “vacation”.

But I do remember the main point, because it is seared on my heart about the family that I was blessed to marry into, and that main point is that love won out.  

I believe twenty-seven of our thirty people got really sick from whatever virus our son picked up at a McDonald's Playland on the way down to North Carolina, but...no one excommunicated us from the family, and we (surprisingly!) still got invited back for family vacation the next year (and the next).  

And, as family does best...everyone rolled with it and moved on.

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (15) And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.  ~Colossians 3:14-15

The vacation sickness-story still gets told (almost twenty years later) at extended family gatherings from time to time, and the details both fade and get embellished(!), depending on who tells the story.  

However, the main point in our family is still the main point and it will never fade: Love won. 

And we all still gather (and sometimes vacation together) because that main point of love continues to be our (family) main point.  

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.  ~I Corinthians 13:13

~~~

Our family didn’t “make up” the idea of love winning-out—God did. 

The Lord has lots to say about loving each other, and love was God’s main point from the very beginning of time.  When we make loving-others our main point, then we are following in our Heavenly Father’s (loving) footsteps.  

  • Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.  ~I John 4:8  
  • The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  ~Psalm 103:8 
  • And so we know and rely on the love that God has for us.  God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  ~I John 4:16

Our Lord has put-up with a lot more from us than just a stomach-bug.  Our sin separated us from God, but in love the Lord sent His Son to pay for our sin, so that we could have relationship with Him now, and share eternity with Him forever.

Now, that’s love. 

  • Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  ~John 15:13 
  • For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but will have eternal life.  ~John 3:16

~~~

Will we have ups and downs today? 

Yes.

And (trust me): it is entirely possible that someone we love will bring a stomach-bug into the confines of our home and infect everyone.

Life happens.  Accidents happen.  Contagions happen.  Reactive words and harsh comments happen and get hurled. 

Family is not perfect.  Friends are not perfect.  We are not perfect. 

Only God and His Son Jesus are perfect.  And they taught us how to get as-close-to-perfect as possible in our lives, in our families, in our hearts: put on love.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  ~2 Cornthians 5:21

Let love be our main point today.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of wrongs.  ~I Peter 4:8

Everyone: Let’s do as the family of God does best today: roll with it (whatever “it” is) and move on.

Let love win out today.

Blessings,

sarah

https://sarahsundy04.blogspot.com

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