The Seamans: Raquel's Corner

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Raquel's Corner

Raquel is two months old today! She doesn't feel so tiny anymore and she's still sleeping all night, in fact, she's sleeping between 8 to 10 hours every night, such a blessing!

Here's my nephew Andrew. The new Trekkie!

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The Real Deal

Make love a priority. Corinthians1 13

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If 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 have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails.

Excerpt from Purpose Driven Life

Life is all about love.
Because God is love, the most important lesson he wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us "The whole Law can be summed up in this one command: Love others as you Love yourself."

Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature. That's why we're give an a lifetime to learn it....

... Love cannot be learned in isolation. You have to be around people- irritating, imperfect, frustrating people...

..Let love be your greatest aim...

Excerpt #3 from PDL

Love Is an Action
12/18/2008
Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions. 1 John 3:18 (NLT)
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Love is something you do. Do you really love someone? Let’s see how you act toward that person. You show love by what you do, not just by what you feel.
Love is more than attraction and more than arousal. It’s also more than sentimentality, like so many of today’s songs suggest. By this standard, is love dead when the emotion is gone? No, not at all. Because love is an action; love is a behavior.
Over and over again, in the Bible, God commands us to love each other. And you can’t command an emotion. If I told you “Be sad!” right now, you couldn’t be sad on cue. Just like an actor, you can fake it, but you’re not wired for your emotions to change on command. Have you ever told a little kid, “Be happy!” I’m trying, daddy!
If love were just an emotion, then God couldn’t command it. But love is something you do. It can produce emotion, but love is an action.
The Bible says, “Let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions” (1 John 3:18 NLT). We can talk a good act: “I love people.” But do we really love them? Do you really love them? Our love is revealed in how we act toward them.

Excerpt #2 from PDL

Love Is a Choice
2008/11/25
… That you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:20 (NIV)
*** *** *** ***
Love is a choice and a commitment. You choose to love or you choose not to love.
Today we’ve bought into this myth that love is uncontrollable, that it’s something that just happens to us; it’s not something we control. In fact, even the language we use implies the uncontrollability of love. We say, “I fell in love,” as if love is some kind of a ditch. It’s like I’m walking along one day and bam! – I fell in love. I couldn’t help myself.
But I have to tell you the truth – that’s not love. Love doesn’t just happen to you. Love is a choice and it represents a commitment.
There’s no doubt about it, attraction is uncontrollable and arousal is uncontrollable. But attraction and arousal are not love. They can lead to love, but they are not love. Love is a choice.
You must choose to love God; he won’t force you to love him (Deuteronomy 30:20). You can thumb your nose at God and go a totally different way. You can destroy your life if you choose to do that. God still won’t force you to love him. Because he knows love can’t be forced.
And this same principle is true about your relationships: you can choose to love others, but God won’t force you to love anyone.