When I first woke up this morning I was feeling scared and beyond hope for our world. Doomed, you know? And then something happened – something changed in my thoughts. I’m sitting here, trying to trace back what caused the change, and I’m not sure, exactly.

Maybe it was learning in the first post I saw on Facebook this morning that a friend who’s been trying for years to get pregnant just learned she was expecting. Or maybe I started thinking about how my friend, Janie, and her husband, showed up at my doorstep last night with cookies. Or maybe I was thinking about my little granddaughter in Australia. But I suddenly felt Love touching my shoulder and smiling at me, and the hymn “Tender Mercies” came into my thoughts.

I found Lisa Redfern’s version of the song on Youtube, and I’ve been listening to it. So beautiful. So pure.

I feel like the sun is rising in my thoughts – like light is rising over the hills and filling the dark places in my inner landscape. I’m feeling hope.

As long as we can feel love, there’s hope. I know this maybe sounds naive and simplistic – but I know there’s power in Love. I know Love is the only real thing. And as long as we can hang onto it, and live in it, we have everything that really matters. Without love, we have nothing. We can “win wars” and have gazillions of dollars – but without Love, we have nothing.

Actually – that sounds a lot like I Corinthians 13, doesn’t it? “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

And “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

“Love never fails.”

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Let’s keep hope. Let’s keep faith. But let’s especially keep love.

***

I awake each morn to a brand new day,
Singing Hallelujah! as I go on my way,
For my heart is fixed on this one guarantee,
The Love that is All holds me tenderly.

Tender mercies, oh, tender mercies,
Tender mercies are holding me.
Tender mercies, oh, tender mercies,
Tender mercies are holding me.

I can walk in Love through the valley of fear,
Singing Hallelujah! when hope is deferred,
The desert of my longings can’t fulfill,
But Love fills all need and bids want be still.

So no matter the need and no matter the threat,
I’m secure in Your love, no fear, no regret.
Can there be a sweeter comfort, a grace more secure,
Than the thought that your Love is lovingly here?
– Susan Mack