Love Giver

...Love one another deeply, from the heart. I Peter 1:22


Last Sunday (Oct. 14), comedian and education activist Bill Cosby was interviewed by Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press. He spoke regarding various parenting and educational issues in the black community including the importance of the father's role in the home. Many of the points he brought up can be applied to all races and creeds. One phrase in particular tugged at my heart. Dr. Cosby said that parents are to be more than caregivers. They are to be love givers. I felt convicted.
Love givers. What a great term. And a term that I think should not just apply to parents. It extends to adult children of elderly or sick parents. It refers siblings, neighbors, and friends.

Loving and caring. The two go hand in hand. You can have caring without love, but you cannot have love without caring. Care tends to pertain mostly to basic needs. But love....love is more than just meeting needs. Love involves sacrifice. Jesus calls us to be love givers.

Before I progress, please know that it is not my intent to get on my little cyber soapbox and be preachy. This blog is my platform to share my heart. And I really want to share this part of it, because it is an area in which I am deficient. An area in which I want to grow and become more like Christ's example.

Recently, my mother has been an example of a love giver. Her father (my PapPap) had a stroke on May 25. If this is the first time you are reading about him, please check the right side of this blog for a PapPap update. My mother has been instrumental in his care ever since his stroke. Currently, he resides in a nursing home. The caregivers there often do their best, but they are part of an understaffed team. To ensure that my PapPap's needs are met, my mom is at the nursing home everyday, several times a day. Her visits there go well beyond talking with PapPap and holding his hand. She feeds him, brushes his teeth, shaves his face, helps him get dressed,changes his diapers and helps to get him in and out of bed among other tasks. She is present during most of his rigorous physical therapy sessions. When his needs are being neglected, she heads to the administration offices to make sure the appropriate changes are being put into place. She is his main caregiver, his advocate, his friend. She is his cheerleader, his strong-willed daughter, his tender little girl. She is his love giver.

Mary Nelson is someone else who immediately comes to mind when I think of the term love giver. I met Mary in Corpus Christi, Texas and she, perhaps unknowingly, became a mentor to me. Mary drives about 4 hours (one way) several times a month to help her siblings care for their aging mother. When our family was packing our belongings to leave the Lone Star state for the Palmetto state Mary jumped into action. On several occasions, she asked me how she could help us. This women, of her own free will cleaned my bathroom, packed boxes, and went to battle with the apartment complex management staff over some medication that was left behind. She's a love giver.

I know that this is a long post, but I need to include one more person. Yes, I could include a list so long that you could wrap it around the Earth's axis twice, but I'll add just one more. I couldn't write a post about love givers without mentioning my treasured friend, Molly Long.

Molly is one of those friends who makes you a better person by just being in your presence. A phrase she uses often is "how can I show you love?" Or "Does that not show you love?" I've heard her say those phrases to her family members, to women in our congregation and to me. It can be in simple things such as opening a water bottle for her son (seems like a simple thing, but as she's doing it her heart is saying "let me show Trav love by doing this for him"). I also see it in Molly in some of life's more challenging areas. When there is something that needs to get done, Molly has no problem getting her beautifully manicured hands dirty to get that job done. Her schedule is insanely busy, but a few weeks ago, she took a few hours out of her precious family time to talk to a hurting friend. I know because I was that hurting friend. When Zayden was born, Molly was among the first to call and she used this phrase " How can I best show you love? Can I run errands for you? Watch Xylie? Bring you meals? Clean? You tell me what I can do to show you love." (And I do need to add here that Molly was not the only member of our Bayshore Care group who share this attitude). I know for sure that when I get older and look back on my life, among the times when I felt the most loved will be when we lived in Corpus and were apart of our church caregroup (sooner or later, I intend to highlight them all in future posts).

The reason why I highlighted the ladies above is because they sacrifice without grumbling and complaining. They look not for earthly rewards. They aren't sending out invoices or cashing in on any debts.They do it because the are love givers. I don't know where on life's path your feet are now standing. Perhaps you have love giving mastered. Perhaps you just have it down concerning one person. Or perhaps you are like me and you try so hard to be consistent with love giving, but also get swept up in in the cyclones of busyness, fear, or complacency among others. My point is not to judge anyone. Only encourage. I know that I need to remind myself more often that I need to be a love giver. My hearts desire? To have others see Jesus in me. So this week, and please keep me accountable, I want to make extra efforts to show love to all I encounter. Don't worry, I have no intentions surprising strangers with hugs, but I will shower them with smiles. I will play ponies at least once with my daughter (sounds simple, but trust me it involves sacrifice). I will also be firm about certain rules we have at home because love has boundaries. I will also do my best to not get snippy with my husband and to be more nurturing. I believe I can do this best by walking closer with the perfect love-giver. The One who washed the dirt and grime-laden feet of his disciples. The same 24 feet he knew would abandon him. Two of those feet would stand under the man who would deny Him and two of those feet would carry the one who would betray Him. Yet, He still washed. He washed because He loved. He loved every day of His earthly life. He Loved while He hung on that cross and He loves still today from the throne of God.

I don't know about you, but this week, this month, this year, this lifetime...I want to be a love-giver.

(The pictures on this site are just used to break up the copy. They are copyrighted by Index Stock Imagery--A really good stock photography company.)