Feel Loved (valentine’s day 2025)

Open with Prayer: God, we thank you for this time together, for the technology that makes it possible, and the hearts that connect us. Be with us as we travel, join us in this journey, and help us see and hear you always. Amen.

Read: 1 Corinthians 13:1-17

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Ask: 

Why do you think Paul says not loving is like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal? 

Why is love more important than anything else? 

Love is patient, kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. Which one of those words do you want to work on when it comes to loving other people? 

What makes you feel loved? 

How do you like to show other people that you love them? 

(Parents and caregivers, we think it’s really interesting to understand how children best receive and give love. The Five Love Languages might give you a clue. Here’s the book for children, here’s the book for teenagers, and here’s a general website). 

Finish with Prayer: 

God, thank you for being with us on Valentine’s Day today. 

God, today we thank you for: (something or someone you’re grateful for)
God, today we need your help with: (something hard or difficult you need to do)
God, today please be with: (someone who may be sick, sad, or hurt)
We ask all this in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Cara Meridith

Cara Meredith is a freelance journalist specializing in the art of story, particularly within the arenas of justice and religion. Her first book, The Color of Life: A Journey Toward Love and Justice, published in February 2019 (Zondervan), and is a spiritual memoir about her journey as a white woman into issues of justice, race and privilege. She has been writing professionally since 2013, and prior to that, she worked as a a high school English teacher and then a non-profit outreach ministry director before obtaining a Masters of Theology (Fuller Seminary). Now, in addition to being a freelance journalist, she is also a speaker and conversationalist, as well a copy and content editor. Think Cara might be a good fit for you? She'd love to chat, otherwise take a look at her writing portfolio.

https://www.carameredith.com
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