Granny Pat: The Living Love Chapter

by Robin Gray

For about three weeks I’ve been mulling over the words of 1 Corinthians 13 in my mind. Not just a few verses, but the entire chapter. I have hesitated to write about it because I’m honestly such light years away from being able to live up to such a standard.

I’m not patient or kind or long-suffering. I’m not any of those things even when there isn’t a worldwide pandemic. But being a nurse in these unprecedented times has caused my occasional disgust with humanity to become far more perpetual, which is not a very “Jesus” way of being and doing in this world. So I’m feeling very unworthy of quoting those powerful words.

A Ray of Sunshine…

I think sometimes God puts people in front of us who are by nature just capable of doing what we can’t to give us such an example, and at least I can say that he put one such person in my life several years ago. Her name is Patricia Wigglesworth, and she is my ex-husband’s mother and my children’s grandmother.

She came into my life like a bright ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, and doubtless, I came into hers like a category 5 hurricane. She loved me when I didn’t know how to love anyone, including myself.

A Wordless Sermon on Love…

She didn’t quote scripture to me. She just lived her life and demonstrated in everything she did that:
“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.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

I once heard a pastor say that if you can plug your name into those verses everywhere that the word “love” is mentioned, you would truly be living a Christ-like life, because Jesus is all of those things. I could never plug my name into those spaces, but I’m sure I could say “Granny Pat” there, and it would all be absolutely true.

And really, that’s what love does. It has a gentle way of just moving in and around you. It speaks of God without a need for words, but always showing you who he is.

Rising to the Stature of Grown Up Love…

The end of the chapter speaks of maturity. Many people use it out of context as if Paul had changed the subject. But he didn’t, and he hasn’t. The entire chapter is all about love, including the part that says, “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.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)

I confess that sometimes I’m still selfish and very much a child where love is concerned. But this passage tells us specifically that love is mature in thinking, reasoning and action. Love compells us to rise above our base instincts and reflex reactions. Somehow, Granny Pat showed me love when it would have been so much easier for her not to. I’m a Granny now, but I still want to grow up to be more like her.

Finally, Face to Face with Love…

This past Sunday morning, Granny Pat left this side of heaven to meet Jesus face to face. “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.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

I do not know what Jesus looks like, but Granny Pat does today… And if I had to guess, he probably looks a whole lot like her…

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