relationships and community on Falling in Love

There is the great lesson of “Beauty and the Beast”; that a thing must be loved before it is loveable.

“And in the end, we were all just humans.. drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.”

And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is bett...

You shall love your crooked neighbor with all your crooked heart.

In 1998, Nick Cave*, an Australian rock/pop artist, was asked by the Vienna Poetry Academy to give a series of talks on the nature of song-writing. A year later he gave a slightly revised version of t...

Love that reaches up is adoration. Love that reaches out is affection. But love that stoops is grace.

Where love rejoices, there is festivity.

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.

Richard Foster wrote once of a father walking through a mall with his two-year-old son. The child was cranky; he kept whining and wriggling and complaining. The father struggled to remain patient. …[...

“I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”

Joy is a net of love in which you can catch souls.

To be fully known and fully loved is the most healing gift one human being can give another.

John Berkley told a story about how he loves live professional choir concerts. At one concert, the conductor asked if anyone in the audience was there celebrating their birthday. Now, it was actually ...

I (Josh) know a young man named Mark who was on the brink of self-destruction. He partied away his first semester of junior college and was later kicked out of school. He was devastated by his loss an...

I pray that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and heig...

We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in him and we cannot help being happy: we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which ...

Nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from God’s love. St. Paul reminded the Romans of this when he wrote, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things p...

We’re little children wandering the aisles of the internet because we’ve lost the presence of our loving parent. We are desperate for the attention of a good Father who sees us. We have no idea how to...

Lisa Sharon Harper shares a powerful testimony in her book, The Very Good Gospel. Her story is that she grew up the child of a single mother after her parents divorced. After the divorce she and her ...

Mark Rutland humorously recalls a survey asking Americans which words they most long to hear. As expected, the top response was, “ I love you. ” The second was, “ I forgive you .” ...

Even as we eagerly await your return, Lord Jesus, we must confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart, with our entire mind, nor with all of our strength. We have loved our rituals and our...

Love keeps no record of wrongs. We keep to-do lists so we don’t forget We check them twice We carry them in our pockets Holding on to the pain The disappointment The failure Re-viewing the wrong Poi...

We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come. But what is certain is that Love must last. God, the Eternal God, is Love. Covet, therefore, that everlasting gift.

Heavenly Father, You shower Your love on us throughout every stage of life. We praise You for Your steadfast love. Through Your Son we see the extent of that love while through Your Spirit we experien...

In the Second World War, a group of soldiers were fighting in the rural countryside of France. During an intense battle, one of the American soldiers was killed. His comrades did not want to leave his...

There’s a gut–wrenching scene in the Korean film Secret Sunshine that captures the scandal of grace better than any film I’ve ever seen. The scene takes place in a prison, as protagonist Shin-ae (Jeon...

Growth in grace is growth downward. It is the forming of a lower estimate of ourselves. It is a deepening realization of our nothingness. It is a heartfelt recognition that we are not worthy of the le...

Leader: Blessed Lord Jesus, before your cross I kneel and see the heinousness of my sin, my iniquity that caused you to be made a curse, the evil that provokes divine wrath. All: Show me the enormit...

The child became a man and the man became a preacher whose sermons were full of commonplace things: seeds and nets, coins and fishes, lilies of the field, and birds of the air. Wherever he was, he had...

Create in us a clean heart, O God. Please cleanse us from our sins and iniquity. Restore to us the joy of salvation that comes from you. Have mercy on us according to your steadfast love. Renew us wit...