Saturday, July 19, 2008

A Goodbye

Daniel, Isaiah and I traveled to Kansas over the weekend to attend my Grandmother's funeral. She was 94 and ready to go home to heaven.
Here is a picture of me with my Grandparents when I was about Isaiah's age.
I'm glad that I was able to bring Isaiah to see Grandma back in May.
My little cousins recited 1 Corinthians 13 (the whole chapter) by MEMORY at the funeral. Somehow the words struck me in a new and different way coming out of the mouths of children. I decided that I would like to memorize the passage as well as a tribute to my grandmother who could quote so many scriptures word for word from memory.
1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.

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