You are such a good God. You have walked beside me every day of my life, whether I deserved it or not. If I’m being honest, I never deserved your love, care, or grace. But you pursued me. You watched over me, protected me, and drew me to you. There were seasons in my life when I desired things that glorified me more than I desired you. I prioritized my friends, family, dreams, and pleasure, and still there are times where that creeps back in.

vWhen babies are born, no one has to teach them to suck. It’s a natural instinct so deeply embedded in them that they can even do it from inside the womb. Towards the end of a pregnancy, babies are known to drink in amniotic fluid using that sucking mechanism. This way, when they’re born, they can go right to drinking milk from the mother. They don’t starve or have to wait days and days to figure out how to eat. They are born doing it. I knew all this in a clinical sense before I was a mother, but once my daughter was born, I marveled at God’s design. It is nothing short of a wonder that a child is born and instinctively knows that their mother, who they have only known from the inside and is all of a sudden an external presence to them, has milk to drink. And it’s even more of a wonder that that child’s little tummy is so small that only a few drops is enough to not only satisfy their hunger, but also to slowly grow that baby into a nourished child. Because at first, that’s all the mother makes– a few drops. It takes days before her milk fully comes in and months before it establishes.

We’ve all done it. Maybe it’s the Sunday scaries, with a new work week looming on the horizon. Maybe it’s our family or the plans we’ve made for our weekends. Maybe our own personal workload between balancing a clean house, social lives, love interests, whatever it may be.

I think this passage in the Bible is one of the most well-known ones. Even if you’ve never gone to Sunday school, never picked up a Bible, and never had a faith of your own, chances are, you’ve heard fragments of this verse someway, somehow. Whether it’s a scripture reading at a wedding ceremony you attended or printed on some trendy home decoration at Marshall’s, 1 Corinthians 13 tends to be one of those Bible verses that crossed over into secular culture at one point or another.

Have you ever come in contact with another Christian and thought: Wow, that person spends a LOT of time with Jesus? You know them, people that are practically dripping with the peace and the assuredness that comes with spending a lot of time in His presence. They give awesome advice, because their minds are so deeply rooted in scripture and their very thought process has transformed to be more like Jesus.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that youth LOVE talking about Netflix. It seems like every week they come to meetings and discuss what they’ve been watching, quote funny or notable parts, and hash out their fan theories. Recently, one show in particular dominated their weekly Netflix review. Upon finding out I had no opinion to add because I don’t watch it, they wanted to know why. Usually, I’m up on stuff like that, so for me to say, “Oh, I don’t watch that, and I don’t plan on it,” was a rare occurrence.