Nothing Says ‘I Love You’ Like…
Ruth Ann Stites, Staff Writer
This Memorial Day weekend was also the anniversary of the devastating tornado that struck our area of Benton County a year ago. I had purchased flower arrangements to place on my parents’ and grandparents’ graves the Friday before the storms swept through early on Sunday morning, May 26, 2024. The damage was so severe in and around the Rogers cemetery that I was unable to place the bouquets that year, so I decided to save them for Memorial Day 2025.
The weather Saturday afternoon was perfect for a visit to the cemetery, warm, sunny, with a few clouds floating overhead. So much had changed as most of the mature trees had been damaged and removed, but it was still a quiet and peaceful place to remember and memorialize both the service of the military persons resting there and our beloved family members. I took my year-old bouquets and placed them at the graves. They looked nice, although the bows took a little more fluffing than is usually required.
I wondered what I would say if I could speak to my parents one more time. It wouldn’t be to ask questions, discuss former hurts and mutual joys, or even ask for guidance. All I really wanted to tell them was “I love you so very much.”
Human relationships are often difficult and complicated, even the good ones. I was blessed with parents who knew the value of unconditional love and did their best to practice it with their children. But, because they were fallible humans, they didn’t always get it right, just as my sisters and I didn’t respond as well-loved children should all the time. I wouldn’t want anyone to think my family and I were perfect so that the only thing I’d want to say to my parents was “I love you.” It’s just that everything else is unimportant in comparison to love.
Jesus, when asked by one of the Pharisee experts on the law about the most important commandment, said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 22:37-39, NIV). Jesus went directly to the heart of the entire law and the prophets with that statement. It is one of the most comforting and demanding statement our Lord made in His earthly ministry. Comforting because when love is expected it must first be given. As John puts it in 1 John 4:8, “…God is love.” And demanding because of the first part of that same verse, “Whoever does not love does not know God.”
We “get” the first commandment, at least in a general since. We know praise, obedience, belief, and sacrifice are ways we can continually show our love to God. We have lots of aid in the structure of Christian worship to help us incorporate expressions of love for God in our lives. But the second commandment is much harder to understand, much less practice. It’s easy to give reverence to an unseen God, but hard to act lovingly to a seen and often difficult person right in front of us, even the person in the mirror, ourselves.
When we look at Jesus command, the first person we have to learn to love is ourselves. Then we are to love others in the same way. “We need some help here, please, Lord!”
One of the great “help us” love passages in Scripture is found in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians. Paul gives us a “check-list” of qualities that are essential to love.
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. (1 Cor. 13:4-8a)
First, how do you stack up on treating yourself with patience, kindness, and forbearance, and are you easily angered or hold grudges? Then, are you treating others as you should be treating yourself? Those are questions we can seek answers for, and loving qualities we can practice with diligence and share with abandon…if we will obey Jesus’ second commandment.
(Photo credit: RA Stites, Rogers City Cemetery, May 2025)
