Love

February is often called the love month, and with everything that's happening over the next month here at Harbor View it is a fitting title.  We kick off the month a little early this year as the annual Oyster roast falls actually this weekend, but as a February tradition it is an event that we here love, and that shows our love for one another as we join and fellowship together.  This love is familiar, the kind we feel as part of a family, a happy joyous love.  No sooner will we be full of oysters than we'll be preparing to talk about our love for the church together.  On February 12 we will come together to talk about what we all see as the vision for Harbor View.  This love is a self sacrificing love, as we talk not only about what we desire, but hopefully can put aside our personal desires and hear what God desires for us. As soon as we're done with this event many of us will be preparing for St. Valentines day.  There is no great history to St. Valentine, but the name is fitting for the day as Valentine comes from the latin word for strong, worthy, powerful and that describes the love we often celebrate on the 14th of February.  It is a day that we all talk about the power of love, and the passion it can make us feel.  Finally, let us not forget the love of our families, and especially our Children.  On February 24 and 25 we will be holding a Parenting Workshop here at the church. This is a great place to come celebrate being a parent, share with our leader and other parents your experience and hear from them as well as we discuss the balancing act that is parenting and how to show love to our kids in a Christian and constructive way.  As you can see, February is a month of love, and throughout it I hope that we remember the greatest commandments:  Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and Love your Neighbor as yourself.

1 Corinthians 13:1-10 MSG
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
   Love never gives up.
   Love cares more for others than for self.
   Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
   Love doesn't strut,
   Doesn't have a swelled head,
   Doesn't force itself on others,
   Isn't always "me first,"
   Doesn't fly off the handle,
   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
   Doesn't revel when others grovel,
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
   Puts up with anything,
   Trusts God always,
   Always looks for the best,
   Never looks back,
   But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompleteness will be canceled.