I have been at the church, in the youth department, for only 7 ½ months, and my heart is totally taken by the students I get to interact with and invest in.  I know I don’t get a lot of one-on-one time with them, (my volunteer leaders ROCK!) but when I see their name on my phone, or in the paper, social media successes, in the bulletin, or out around town- my heart weeps with joy. 

I know I would totally creep them out if I walked up to them and told them how much I love them, so I will just write it here… 😊   My pastor said this is the definition of a ‘ministry heart’, a heart that loves and you do not expect love in return.  Loving those that God has put in your path, no matter who they are, and even though it’s a job- it’s so much more than that.  It’s a kind of love that wants the best for them, to see them succeed, to see them grow in their love for Christ and His church (the people). 

I daily thank God for giving me this opportunity, praying that I never get to busy with the details to stop and just love, praying that love will be reciprocated into the world around us.  Lord, let this spark of love grow into a roaring flame!

If you feel in need of some love, love someone, and Christ will fill your love tank up!

On this Valentine’s Day, in a world so full of hate, let us seek to love, beyond romantic love.  Love that we have life, love that we get to love others, love the neighbor across the street, or across town, love your kids, your spouse, your family. If you feel in need of some love, love someone, and Christ will fill your love tank up!   I Corinthians says that any effort in live is not worth it, if there is not love.  Thank you Lord for allowing me to love these kids!

“If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may ^[a]glory, but do not have love, it does me no good. Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant.  It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered,  it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  it ^]keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of ^[c]prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with.  For we know in part and prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I ^[d]became a man, I did away with childish things.  For now we see in a mirror ^[e]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known.  But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the ^[f]greatest of these is love.”

II Corinthians 13:1-13 (NASB)