Irresistible Love

"Love talked about is easily turned aside. Love demonstrated is irresistible." -- Stanley Mooneyham

A lifetime ago a girl named Joy Shupe wrote those words in my high school yearbook. Underneath those words, she wrote things that I am still struggling to live into in my life. She said that Mooneyham's words described me and that I was her "personal Barnabas." I didn't even know who Barnabas was at that point in my life, so how could I be like him?! I read what she wrote to me so many times that I still (14+ years later) have almost every word of what she wrote committed to memory. Her words are both encouraging and challenging. They have followed me around ever since...

The beauty of what Joy Shupe did for me that day is that she spoke into my life something I did not see in myself. I still do not know what I might have done that would have inspired her to say something like that to me. What I do know is that ever since I read her words in my high school yearbook, I have tried to really live into them. I want those words to be true of me more and more each day...

I haven't spoken to Joy in years, but I think about her all the time. That quote and her words have shaped who I am and who I want to be. I want to be a person of "irresistible love." The kind of love that never stops giving. The kind of love that inspires and challenges others. The kind of love my friend Joy Shupe had for me...