Whatever The Question - Love Is The Answer

“And you shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second like it is this; You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” - Mark 12:30-31


What would you do if you were told you only had six months to live? What would you do with your time left? Last Christmas, we had no idea we would be faced with the reality of this question. We all know our day of death is inevitable, but we never really believe it is true for ourselves. And so we go on living as if we have forever.

Celebrating the birth of Christ gives whole new meaning to that question if we stop and consider the gift HE brought to the world. One word – LOVE. It is all we need to know and consider on our journey here on earth.

Having an “appointment time” for one’s imminent departure, completely changes everything about life. It brings you from a life of superficial living and mundane attention to inconsequential things, to getting serious about answering the eternal question – what am I here for? What have I accomplished or learned so far?

What you have learned is evident in how you currently live. Are you focused on the truth of our existence or caught up running in place on the never ending wheel of frustration like a gerbil in a cage. That wheel is full of a million distractions that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

What matters is love. What matters is love. What matters is love.

There I said it. Are you listening?

The whole purpose of Jesus being born was to bring the world this message. Love your Lord. Love yourself. Love your neighbor . Those commandments are intertwined – you cannot have one without the other. It’s like the old chicken and the egg question. Which came first?

Our lessons in love for the Williams family have cast a whole new light on the subject these past months on the cancer journey. This is where love comes down to the “heart of the matter” and is tested in ways I never would have imagined. It’s like a long version of life flashing before your eyes…but in this instance it is love and all its aspects we have known flashing before us.

I see all the different forms of love we have experienced throughout the years since our love began. It has grown and evolved, gone backwards and forwards, up and down. It has stretched to both extremes of good and bad. We have left it. We have come back to it. We have defined it. We have redefined it. We have multiplied it.

It has been filled with joy. It has been filled with pain. It has been filled with laughter. It has been filled with friendship. It has been filled with battles. What I have come to realize now looking back, is that all of it has lead us to the best definition of love – and this was the one Christ was trying to teach us – unconditional love.

Yes, it’s all about loving someone through the good, the bad and the ugly. Remember the old time vows of love we recited at our marriage ceremonies? For richer or poorer. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. It’s all about the commitment of love that we make to love no matter what. Love conquers everything.

But it is about more than marital love. That is simply our practice field. Then it extends to our family. Then it grows to embrace our friends. Then it grows to our neighbors and our communities. And from there we can reach out and touch the world with love.

But as Christ shows us – it begins with the greatest source of love which is our Lord. We must recognize and honor Him first. Then we can love and honor ourselves, and the chain of love keeps growing and growing.

This Christmas I hope you will give the gift of love to your life in all its glorious forms. Don’t wait until you have a deadline. Tell those you love that you love them. Show those you love that you do by making them a priority on your list of things to do. Live your life as if you knew when your time was up so you will make the most of it. This is how to make your life count.

This is the real purpose and the only purpose for being here. We are each a different blueprint of God’s love. We are all snowflakes in life. Roll us together and we can make a good snowman better than ole Frosty!

So Christmas greetings from The Williams house to all of you “jolly happy souls.” Our one wish for you in the coming year is to live, love, laugh and be happy. Then pass it on.

Christmas Blessings!

Rene, Johnny and Scarlett Williams