Robert had been assigned the first reading of the wedding. It was a classic and one of Martha’s enduring favorites.
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 . . .
No, it doesn’t, agreed Martha.
Martha felt closer to God now than she ever had before in her life, and certainly closer than she ever had when she was a doctor. Perhaps we get so caught up in our paid work and our kids’ schedules and our narcissistic pursuits that we make it impossible to let love in, thought Martha. She had certainly been pretty closed off. Hope had put her on a different path.
She was at the beginning of an exciting new phase in her life. She had begun to provide medical counseling and support for prospective adoptive parents of children with special needs. She had a lot to learn about the process and the organizations she would be working with, but she finally felt that the missing piece had fallen into place. She had found a way to use her hard-earned knowledge on her own terms.
She glanced at Hope sitting peacefully on her chair next to Bobby and Jack as she listened to the end of the reading.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Sometimes the old words are the best words, she remarked to herself.