I want to talk about love. I've been having some of the seniors that I teach read a few of Shakespeare's sonnets recently. I truly enjoy the sonnets, so I figure the kids ought to learn to appreciate them as well. After reading several of them, we talked about the poet's view of love. Although we don't know for sure who Shakespeare had in mind with these sonnets---or if he was just writing about a theoretical love---the truth about real love is universal.
I was reminded of our class discussion in church Sunday night when Scotte Staab sang the line "Love won't compromise." I got out my pencil and jotted down some words from Shakespeare: "[Love] is the star to every wandering bark." Love is the sure thing we can depend upon. Like the North Star guiding ships of long ago, it is a stabilizing force in our lives.
Another sonnet recounts the speaker's dissatisfaction with his life until he remembers someone who loves him. Then he says, "Thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, that then I scorn to change my state with kings." In all our lives, there is someone whom to recall brings a smile to our lips. "If you can't think of anyone else," I tell my students, "You know God loves you."
Just this week I was doing a Bible study on the topic of love. See what John says:
"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." I John 4:9-11.
Real love does not compromise. It doesn't settle for less than the best for the loved one. Since God gave his best for us, we ought to respond in love for him and his children. This is what God is showing me. It's not an easy thing to love like God loves, but I'm working on it.
--Sherry Poff
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