"Love never fails."

I'm not typically one to push religion. Yes, I have my religious beliefs, but I also believe that faith is a personal choice and shouldn't be forced on anyone. If people have questions, I'm always more than willing to talk about faith with them...but like I said, it's a person choice.

Last night, though, this phrase got stuck in my head: "Love is patient, love is kind." So, I got online and looked up the full chapter (yes, I was being lazy...I didn't feel like walking to my bookshelf to open up a real Bible). Somehow, this chapter gets me every time! And I think whether you're religious or not, it's just a beautiful piece of writing that I feel anyone could relate to.  For me, I read this chapter as sort of an instructional guide to not only romantic love, but friendship.

So, friends of mine out there, this is what guides me towards being a better friend and person.  What guides you?

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."  (1 Cor. 13)