Yesterday we drove about 20 miles from our home to meet with Ryan's parents and Grandparents for dinner, they are camping at Yucaipa Regional park, and though they knew we couldn't join them to camp, they asked us to at least come up one night for dinner, we did. Ryan's grandparents are getting on in years, his grandmother suffers from dementia and it has completely stolen herself from her and from the family that loves her. She did not want to go on this trip, she hates camping now, she is not in her own surroundings and she gets confused. I'm not sure if it is the dementia or the mixture of medications that come with the territory but she can be quite mean, and this trip did not make her happy. She lets the brunt of this meanness unleash on her daughter, Ryan's mom, my mother in law. She says and does things to her that are out of character for the mom she once knew. While in the trailer last night Ryan's grandmother said something very mean to my mother in law and through her frustration my mother in law looked at me and almost in tears said "I want my mom back" I smiled a smile of compassion, I know it must be hard. It was not until this morning as I was replaying this experience over in my memory that I thought about love bearing all things. After we ate last night and the kids were playing, I caught a glimpse of Ryan's grandparents sitting together, she was telling him that her knees hurt, he bent down and took her small fragile frame in his hands, lifting her leg to rest upon his own and he began to message her knee, then the other one. They have been married since they were teens, together they have weathered the storms of life, the challenges of raising two daughters, making a home for themselves, enjoying grand children and great grandchildren, and now 64 years later, they sit together in folding metal chairs, Ryan's grandfather bearing all things in love. I internalized this as I often do with things and I was moved to think, to wonder, will Ryan love me for that many years? will God give us the opportunity, the privilege of growing old together? and if I become mean and forgetful in my old age will he still tenderly love and protect me? the scriptures say that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things, They will go on to speak of the power of love and make the bold statement that Love NEVER fails. Many things fail, but love will not. That is powerful, that is a hope we can cling to, God alone can give something this perfect for us to embrace, experience, feel, give and receive, for our human ability to love is so limited and can be so flawed when we try on our own strength, God alone is our only hope for true and lasting love, a love we can experience, a love we can give and receive,this love is at it's purest form when it is birthed in his
agape love, this is the kind of love that hopes, this kind of love believes, and in that we are strengthened to be able to bear all things...
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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