1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (A Mother's Version)

If I speak in a calm and rational tone, but do not have love, I am like those obnoxious educational talking toys that speak in annoyingly cheerful voices while I'm trying to think. If I have the gift of poetry and can fathom all sorts of insights into my and my children's hearts, and if I have the oomph to get a myriad of things done, but do not love, I am pointless. If I give all I possess to my children and give over my rest and my personal hygiene and all the hours of my day so that no one can say that I didn't give it my all, but do not have love, I have earned myself nothing.

Love can sit through the first-grader's painstakingly-slow reading of Green Eggs and Ham, love is kind enough to ignore those questions that she knows she won't be able to answer without bombastically venting all her pent-up anger. It does not envy all the other moms who also don't post their messy moments on facebook, it does not boast about all the vegetables her kids eat or the books they can already read or the good services she's having them do, it is not making a mental chart of how well she is doing in comparison to everyone else.

It does not pass on less than complimentary details about others, it is not acting out of the deficiencies of her own heart, it does not let offenses build up so that one little slight becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back, it doesn't keep record of all the things her children have cost her or all the times her husband has got a break and she didn't. 

Love doesn't delight in having her presumptions about her friends' deficiencies confirmed but rather rejoices in how all things bring about God's truth. Love can take anything because it just passes the bill on to God, it always trusts him to handle it, always hopes in the right person, always lasts through until the very last "good-night" at bedtime because real love's resources are endless.

Love never fails.