But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 

Galatians 5:22-25, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

So what I need, at the end of a very difficult day, is a few minutes with Rebekah – even if she is more than 7,000 miles away in Bahrain. I am very grateful, then, that video chat is so accessible and from just about anywhere in the wide world.

Back in the late 70’s, when we were dating and then engaged, it was long distance phone calls and a steep price for the connection. Rebekah was in Atlanta for grad school and I would call her from Stetson’s Student Union Building, feeding quarters into the phone sometimes for thirty minutes or more. I remember one conversation that went south, and we just kept talking in the hopes something would resolve. Eventually, forty-five minutes and close to forty dollars into the impasse, I ran out of money and the call beep-beeped its way into silence with both of us wondering if we were still engaged!

Thank goodness, then, for the opportunity I will have around 11:30 tonight – right when I am going to bed and Rebekah is waking up in Manama, eight hours ahead of us here in North Carolina.

I know she will make me smile. And I know that I will laugh at the stories she is going to share, and I will tell her what’s going on with my parents next door, and then I will likely cry, and she will too, and we will frame the ending of my day and the beginning of hers with good communication, and the sun will shine somewhere and it will be alright.

Love is:

This is what people who love one another do. They listen and they share and they hold hands and they pray for one another and they are encouraging. More than anything they are open and they are compassionate and they are kind.

I don’t think I can say enough about kindness.

• “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness…”
• “Love is patient, love is kind…”
• “In the end, only kindness matters…” (Jewel)

DEREK