Fall Festival & True Love

Yesterday was the Fall Festival at the Baptist Children's Home. During the Fall Festival the children's home campus and staff host many churches through out Illinois that come and set up booths. Everything from hamburgers, funnel cakes, lemon shake-ups, inflatable rides/games, a dunking booth, volleyball tournament, and much more. All of it is for free and it gives the community we are based in a great opportunity to come visit with us. Yesterday as in years past, turned out to be a wonderful day on the campus.

Genna with some of our friends' little girls.

I am pretty sure the girls visited each booth a couple dozen times!

Delaney took this pic with a little help. She said she wanted a shot of her BFF!! ; )

D standing around the horse area, but not getting on any of the horses. She called for the horses, but really wanted nothing to do with them.

This morning I heard it said from the pulpit, that love is not a feeling but something we choose to do. I know that we live in a world where more often then not, love is conditional. It is based on what one can do for us and/or how someone makes us feel. This kind of love is not only present in marriages today but also in families and friendships.

The only real example of love is what flows from the Father. If we are to have a true love in our lives it must come from beyond us. We have to tap into the true source to find it. Thankfully He gives the opportunity freely. We just have to be willing and open to receive it.

1 John 4:7-12 states Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

So whether it is within your marriage, with your children, your parents, your neighbor, your best friend, or a total stranger remember it is not simply a decision each day as to whether you feel in love or not, but if you choose to love. We are not only loved we are also commanded to do likewise.