“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

Yesterday was a great day. Wanting to borrow some of that feeling for today, I began going through its experiences to see what made it so special. From the time my feet hit the floor in the morning I hadn’t stopped running until late. When I retired… I was tired. Reliving it, I was laughed at, criticized, badgered, yelled at, misunderstood and made fun of. Oh…did I say that yesterday was a great day?

The day was spent visiting and communicating with church people. People who LIVE the life statement that Jesus Christ is their Savior. People who genuinely care about each other. My first encounter was with a guy that is teaching me how to competitively shoot. He’s one of my favorites. When we get together, our roles reverse and HE becomes the teacher. He is gruff, short and to the point. When I don’t do what he says, or presume to know what he WILL say next, he yells at me. Well… it SOUNDS like yelling to ME. And I smile!

The next person I met is my 71 year old good friend who is in a wheel chair. His condition leaves him unable to do ANYTHING by himself. Even talk! There’s only 1 person who can understand what he says and she wasn’t in the room. So I talked, he tried, and I know he had to think I was nuts. I misunderstood what he was trying to say while he put up with my incessant speaking to fill space. I was blessed and so was he. He’s one of my favorites.

The next person I spent time with had a combination of serious responsibility problems, physical pain and a sense of humor like mine! I am sure that anyone listening to us would have backed out of the room as we teased, vented and verbally degraded anyone and anything that has ever caused us pain. Then we laughed about it. She’s one of my favorites!

I have the honor of meeting with a young man and mentoring him. Actually…It’s kind of funny because while I am supposed to be teaching HIM how to mature in an adult world, I find HE is teaching ME as well. We laughed, joked, badgered, learned and grew up a little more… together. He’s DEFINITELY one of my favorites.

Of course NONE of this could have happened if we didn’t all have the one thing in common that MAKES it all work! And that is LOVE for each other. Christ’s love! It isn’t a surface, fake, mean or pretend kind of love. It puts up with silly offenses and, even what some might consider, rude remarks! Why? Because we are anchored together by our mutual Savior… Jesus Christ. And HE is DEFINITELY my favorite. And THAT is LOVE-PROOF!