Love Covers

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 

  

  How do you make it? How can anyone with a serious illness survive in a cruel world, especially the cruel world of affliction? 

  How can a couple stay together when one of the partners is seriously ill, putting a constant strain and drain on a marriage? There is only one answer, the word is love. Love covers our frustrations, it covers our impatience, and our anger and disappointment. Nothing else can cover the multitude of hardships and challenges and terrible moments of affliction. 

  Sometimes you are angry, at other times it is your spouse, your child, or your parent who is angry. Affliction and its frustrations affect everyone in the household and everyone that you are regularly in contact with. There is no escaping the daily strain of illness and the webs of irritations that it spreads throughout our relationships. It is just like the scripture that says: When one part of the body is in pain, the whole body suffers (1 Corinthians 12:26). 

  And so it is with those affected by affliction. 

  If not for love. . . 

  I bet you can finish that sentence. If not for love. . . we could not forgive each other. If not for love. . . we could not accept each other. Indeed, we could not even tolerate each other. 

  Love covers. 

  Love has covered my home, healed my home, kept my relationships from falling apart.  

  The Christian religion boils down to one word: Love. Without love the Christian religion would become a harsh, intolerant mess. That is because the true faith of Christianity begins with a God of love creating, and ends with a God of love dying to save His creation. It is a circular miracle of love. It is driven by love, held together by love, uplifted by a loving Savior on a cross. Because of His love, we live, and our faith is empowered by love. 

  Christian, you may be one of those suffering affliction. Your life may be one continuous challenge. I cannot promise you it will get easier, I can only tell you that to survive affliction you will need love, a love that is born of God, and only by God’s love can you survive and thrive in the land of your affliction. 

  Prayer: Dear Lord, let Your love live in us, and through Your grace help us to live a life filled with love. Amen.