The Expression of Love

Our Sunday School teacher kindly asked me if I would write a story for this Sunday, Dec. 27 on the Love Chapter from Corinthians.  With my eyes downcast I shook my head sideways and mumbled, "No." I honestly meant no because I understand God's teachings, but I felt unprepared to tell a Bible story in my own words. So Curtis asked others in our Zoom meeting to please write and share. No one took him up on it. 

Even a NO isn't final. First thing on Monday I sat down and read and read the passages from ICorinthians 12, 13 along with explanations in the New Oxford Annotated Bible. It began to open my heart. Paul the Apostle, shares with the people of the church in Corinth that the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy along with the speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues, come from the spirit, but are nothing without LOVE. 13:8.  LOVE never ends. LOVE is like the wind, it never subsides.  Without this LOVE that is patient and kind, like a mother’s love for her child, we have nothing.

 I knew the feeling of God's love, but...

The story might have ended there, except for two reasons. I rarely run from a challenge, but my heart and head made excuses. To my delight on Tuesday, December 22, my five year old companion, Ruth Anne, and I had the opportunity to tour the lovely home of the Christmas Tree Lady. While touring her home filled with colorful trees and walls of Christmas decorations, I realized that she opened the door to her heart by sharing her home and childhood stories about her mother. I knew that this LOVE is what Paul was relating to his followers in Corinth. 

The pictures will show the beauty of her trees, but the deep and abiding LOVE comes in every stitch her mother made in the delicate three hundred and fifty handmade decorations carefully stitched by hand with love in the tree shown above. Her walls were filled with hand made decorations, trees and tree skirts sewn with nearly invisible stitches. There were ornaments, trains, toys, and stockings.

In her husband's library she filled the spaces with trees decorated in his favorite themes of cars, airplanes, OU. Some of the small cars had tiny packages inside, all going to grandma's house.

Her kitchen displayed a cookie cutter tree, a gingerbread man who talked, and a cupcake tree. These were some of Ruth's favorite. 

Deloros’s tonality of sharing changed from a teacher’s voice of explanation and humor for the spectacular Hallmark glass ornaments, to a soft tone; a mother’s tone of caressing a child; a mother’s tone of kindness, a mother's tone of grace and love whenever she touched a handmade gift from her mother’s talented hands and heart. 

Her mother’s love we felt in every tiny Christmas ornament, in every colorful bead of her hand stitched ornaments. The Christmas stockings are hung by the chimney with care, but they were made with love. I could see the love radiating from Deloros as she walked us through her home.  Every space glowed with sparkling glass centerpieces, ten trees each decorated in a theme, and a fireplace beaming with stockings and trees.

Deloros’s connection with her hometown of Carthage, Missouri carries its roots deep into her heart. Her collection of Precious Moments figurines shows the love she cherishes in the artwork and vision of its creator, Sam Butcher. The creator, Sam Butcher, says that his fondest memories are of his grandmother telling him Bible stories, giving him a deep interest in spiritual things. Sam’s life changed one night in a country church, where he heard the good news of salvation, and asked Jesus to come into his heart. Since that night, he decided to only use his artistic talent for the Lord. Something tells me Deloros felt that love when she began collecting these precious figurines.

Ruth Anne's favorite scenes in Precious Moments were of the little dog, Sugar and her puppies. 

When God gave Deloros’s mother the gift of being a seamstress, he also gave her LOVE. LOVE that was passed on in every stitch she took for her daughter. Even touching the round green skirt showing the elaborate forms of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I could feel the love.  

I believe this is the spirit within which God works. We each have gifts and his unconditional love if we choose.  The spirit of LOVE which Paul hoped and prayed that his followers would understand.

 

For more information on Precious Moments click on this link:  Timmy's Tower