Sunshine in the Soul

Today's Valentine Devotional was on GOD'S LOVE REJOICES, Zephaniah 3:17.

We began with the hymn "There is Sunshine in My Soul Today."  This is such a happy, happy hymn that really conveys rejoicing. Not only does God rejoice in His love for us, but with so much light and love we can't help but rejoice ourselves. In Our Latter-Day Hymns the author writes, "This hymn is simply an expression of the happiness that comes to a person who accepts and follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. Such expressions benefit us all; when we rejoice in the happiness that righteousness brings, we lift our own morale and encourage one another's good efforts.... Since the joy of discipleship is difficult to express in words, the author of the text sought to make this joy more vivid through comparisons. She likened it to things that naturally suggest pleasure and contentment: sunshine, 'glorious and bright'; music, 'a carol to my king'; and springtime, with birds and flowers." (POETRY!)

Isaiah 60:19 and Psalm 19, especially verses 9 and 11 went along.

I was already planning to read a particular story about this song that touchingly talks about the second verse and, interestingly, one of my sons kept asking about the second verse regarding Jesus hearing songs we cannot sing. It didn't make sense to him. So it was a perfect segue to our reading "Jesus, Listening, Can Hear.

To then equate God's love with how we should love, we returned to a couple of scriptures we read last week with some new examples.  We talked about how not every person has sunshine in his soul and it is up to those of us who do--who know of God's love for us and rejoicing over us--to spread that sunshine and love.

Sometimes it takes courage to do that.  We read "Talking to Lenny" from the March 2014 New Era and revisited 1 John 4:18.

Then we read a new Valentine book purchase that I immediately fell in love with, Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch  by Eileen Spinelli. This book perfectly, in both word and illustration, shows the difference feeling loved makes in a person's life and the joy that is felt and shared.

We revisited Doctrine & Covenants 18:10-16 and talked about the joy that comes from sharing the gospel, because all missionary work should be motivated by love. Missionary work begins with kindness and service and genuine love for our fellowman.

A rejoicing kind of love also cheers others on and congratulates and is genuinely pleased with the triumphs in others' lives.

Now, after doing all this, one of my sons was bothered and at this point he asked, "How can love rejoice?" That just didn't make sense to him, especially if we're always saying that love is a verb. I'd been saying that light is a manifestation of love, that God gives us light and direction (we even mentioned Hebrews 12:6 and chastening) plus all our blessings because He loves us and that love makes Him and us happy; but from a grammatical perspective a verb follows a noun, not a verb. So I went back to the first concept of God is love. Love is a noun in this sense, God being the embodiment of it, and because His work and His glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, He rejoices in that work. When you really think about it, everything comes down to love. God IS love thus God DOES love as a result. That satisfied my son.

We ended with a writing/drawing activity. I had found some wonderful Mary Engelbreit notecards a while back (okay, I collect them!) and had been saving them for the perfect time, which all of a sudden was today. Inside they were supposed to draw and write scriptures and thoughts and images that meant something to them from our lesson today. The cards had a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. which was perfect for today's devotional. It's hard to read it on the image below, so here it is:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."