"Abounding in Love"

If I had to pick a favorite Psalm, I wouldn't have to think twice! My favorite is Psalm 103.In Psalm 103, verse 8 says:"The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." I love this particular verse and I have it jotted down on a notecard on my bathroom mirror so I can meditate daily on the way the Lord loves us, and how I should love others.

Last week, our girls were struggling with some sharing issues and the Lord placed Psalm 103:8 on my heart. I decided to type it up and post it by our homeschool calendar on the fridge. Because there are several 'big words' in this verse, I looked up the definitions of compassionate, gracious, and abounding. I wanted to be able to explain this verse to our girls in a way that would be easy to understand, that way we could refer to God's word during times when they were wrestling with making 'wise choices'. wink.

I explained that compassionate means that God hurts when we are hurting. God is gracious, which means that He shows kindness. And wow- 'abounding in love' means that God has really REALLY big love for us... so much love that we couldn't even count it all! After we talked about all these 'big words', we talked about God's desire for us to try to be more like Jesus every day. So when we read God's word in Psalm 103:8, we learn that the Lord wants each of us to remember to hurt when our friends (or sisters) are hurting. God wants us to forgive others quickly...and we should not get mad right away when someone does something that bothers us. God's love is REALLY big and even though we could never love others like He perfectly loves us, we can do our best to show our love in lots of little ways.

We have referred back to this scripture atleast a half a dozen times over the last four days. I have walked the girls by the hand over to this scripture and we've gone over it. Then we have re-evaluated the situation or current challenge and talked about what we could do differently to solve the problem. It takes more time to have these conversations with our children than it would take for me to simply swoop into their room and take away the toy or punish the offender but it's so worth it. I know that it pleases the Lord when we continually pour His truth into our girls.

This afternoon, Wubs really surprised me. I never suggested that the girls memorize Psalm 103:8, but I guess we have enjoyed it so much over the last week that Wubs started to remember those 'big words'. We were cleaning up dishes from lunch when Wubs said, "Mommy, I know what your scripture says. It says, "The Lord is.... come-passionate and gracious, He is slow to get angry, and... His love is abounding." I could have cried!! I covered her face with sugars and hugged her! Oh our sweet Wubs!

As always, we are praying for the salvation of our children and we thank God for the priveledge of being their parents!

"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."- James 1:12