If I learned how to handcraft artisan shoes for my child for St. Nicholas’s feast day, but have not love, I’m only a stressed out mom going overboard. And if I read and share all the best Advent quotes, and meal plan every day according to the liturgical calendar, and if I even remember to order wheat from Amazon to plant on St. Lucy’s day, but have not love, I am nothing. If I KonMari away everything I have, and if I deliver up my body to childbearing and breastfeeding, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient (when my toddler wants to do something “by myself” yet again);

Love is kind (when I want  to roll my eyes at a friend’s seeming melodrama);

Love does not envy or boast (when I feel insecure about someone else’s beauty or choices);

It is not arrogant (when I think I can do more than everyone else because, apparently, I’m exceptional)

Or rude (when I make my child be polite, but don’t apply the same standards to myself);

it does not insist on its own way (when my mom offers a truly wise suggestion);

it is not irritable (when am I not irritable?)

or resentful (when I think about my husband getting to work without interruptions);

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices at the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.