Love never ends. I Corinthians 13:8a, NRSV

Life ends, but love doesn’t. It’s all around me, this truth. The woman whose husband died years ago; the expression on the face of a son remembering his mother. Grief may remove the joy from love for a time, maybe even a long time, but the love we have for those who have died continues on.

But what about those who are still alive, whose love for another is gone? Bitter divorce, denouncing or renouncing family ties, cruel actions that break the ties that bind people together: there is no love to be found in these. Forgiveness may be sought and given, but love is another thing altogether.

Paul wasn’t writing about our emotions and our individual limited loves. He wrote about the love that found him. With all that he did wrong in his life, he was never for one second unloved by God. There is no end to love because it came before us and continues on well past our lives. No matter what we have done, we are loved from our first breath and well beyond our last.

Love never ends because God is the never ending source of it. And us? We are vital parts of this never-ending love story that is creation.