What Isaac Said About Love

Each Friday afternoon after my students return from Art class I have them spend about 15 minutes writing in their journals. I usually give them writing prompts because experience has taught me that if I don't, several of them sit and stare at the blank piece of paper and eventually draw illustrations of Naruto or Pokemon.

The first entry has to do with what they learned or experienced in school during the week. The 2nd writing entry is responding to whatever writing prompt I give them. The Friday before Valentine's Day I wrote this on the whiteboard: "What Is Love?" Without explaining or manipulating any of my own thoughts about love, I simply told them to think about love and then write down any thought that came to mind.

Here is what one of my students had to say about love. His name is Isaac. He is nine. He has only been learning English for about two years. We can communicate verbally quite well now, but the reading and writing of English is still a work in progress as you will see. I have not edited any words, sentences, or spelling so that you can enjoy it as it was written by Isaac. Parenthesis are mine. And now, love through the eyes of a nine-year-old.

What is Love? by Issac Jang

Lov is my mom, dad, God, good, Jesuse, Candy, gum, shcool, water, paper, friend, Teacher, home, pencil, fire, Soap, Brithday, brother, sister (he doesn't have a sister), bag, Shoe, cloth, had, body, light, air, hame, TV, movie, popcorn, Car, kindless, Chire, plate, book, fan, energe, crayon, Tissu, printer, paint, desk, money, people, market, ms mac, love is everything.

Love is everything according to Isaac. Indeed. Reminds me of what someone else wrote about love.....

1 Corinthians 13 The Way of Love

(The Message)

¹ If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. ^3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

¹²We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

I love Issac!