God’s Love

When I think about the many widows that dread the approaching Valentine’s Day, I wonder what I could possibly say to those who are hurting. It hurts badly to lose the love of your life, and everywhere you look, you see sweethearts being promoted and their giving flowers, candy, jewelry and many other gifts to each other.

As I was thinking about this, praying, and later talking to a friend, these thoughts came to my mind. God was the first one to love us and the only one who will never leave us. He will love us for eternity and will always be by our side.

One of my favorite hymns is “The Love of God.” This song tells us “the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.” Imagine! “It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell!”

The chorus: “O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure—

The saints’ and angels’ song.”

Frederick M. Lehman

The end of the song states “if we filled the ocean with ink and tried to write the love of god above, it would drain the ocean dry. And no scroll could contain the whole of His love, even though it stretched from sky to sky!”

 

In the devotional book, “Loved Beyond Measure” from CTA, the author expresses God’s love the following way:

God’s love is: Giving— “He gave His only begotten son…” (John 3:16).

Unstoppable – even by death

For Life – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John3:16 ).

Sky High – “Great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies” (Psalm 57:10).

Above the Clouds – “Far as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:1).

I pray that special love, which God has for you this Valentine’s Day and every day, will comfort your hearts. God bless you.

Valentine’s Day Comfort

Valentine’s Day is one of many special days when we miss our husbands. When we are with our friends, we hear them talking about what they usually get from their husbands. Even if you and your mate never exchanged any gifts, with so much focus on the romance and love, it can make us miss them more as the holiday approaches.

This year as I have a luncheon with a small group of widows I plan to focus on the love of God. He is the creator and master of love.  Ephesians 3:19 tells us that the love of Christ is too great for us to fully understand. We can’t understand the length, the depth, the breadth, nor the height, of his love. Romans 8:28 says us that for those who have accepted Christ as their Savior, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, not things present, nor things to come will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I have a small book called Born to Love. It consists of short devotionals about love. Some of them focus on different songs or poems. I particularly like the one called Heaven’s Love. It meditates about the song  The  Love of God.  As Frederick M. Lehman penned these words:

The love of God, is greater far

Then tongue or pen can ever tell!

It goes beyond the highest star

And reaches to the lowest hell .

As he reached the third stanza our writer tells Mr. Lehman was looking for more thoughts about God’s grace and love when he found this poem in his file:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on the earth a quill,

And every man a scribe to trade,

To write the love of God above,

Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Tho’ stretched from sky to sky.

He then concluded with this refrain:

O Love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure

The saints’ and angels’ song .

I encourage you to think about God’s love for us as we celebrate this day. God’s love is a love which we can never lose!

*I have included below some interesting facts about the above poem/song*

Frederick M. Lehman, “History of the Song, The Love of God,” 1948

Music: Fred­er­ick Leh­man; ar­ranged by his daugh­ter, Clau­dia L. Mays (MI­DI, score).

Words: Frederick M. Lehman; he wrote this song in 1917 in Pasadena, California, and it was published in Songs That Are Different, Volume 2, 1919. The lyrics are based on the Jewish poem Haddamut, written in Aramaic in 1050 by Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai, a cantor in Worms, Germany; they have been translated into at least 18 languages.

One day, during short intervals of inattention to our work, we picked up a scrap of paper and, seated upon an empty lemon box pushed against the wall, with a stub pencil, added the (first) two stanzas and chorus of the song…Since the lines (3rd stanza from the Jewish po­em) had been found penciled on the wall of a patient’s room in an insane asylum after he had been carried to his grave, the general opinion was that this inmate had written the epic in moments of sanity.

May God Bless you and Comfort  you this Valentine’s Day,

Kathy

Happy Valentine’s Day!