By Katy Mariotti

Love One Another

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”
Matthew 5:46-47 English Standard Version

Even though I’ve always thought it was a fun holiday, Halloween hasn’t ever been my favorite. I’ve just never been into the macabre. I don’t like horror or gore. When celebrating Halloween in the past, it’s been more about fun or pretty costumes than scary ones, and definitely more about spending time with friends and family than about ghoulishness.

Well, now I have a seven-year-old who LOVES creepy things. He likes ghost stories, Goosebumps books, and skeletons… so much so that we even got him this skeleton cat for his birthday last year. Now of course we don’t really get into horror, being that he is only seven, and despite his interest, he’s a sensitive soul! But I’ve learned to embrace the creepy because I love him.

Most of us probably spend our lives being around people who are similar to us. They have a similar education level, probably similar interests, and similar political and religious beliefs. I’ve had occasion in the past couple months to spend a bit of time with people who are very different from me. Not just interested in different things, like my son, who despite loving creepy things is quite similar to my husband and me, but people who have vastly different belief systems and life experiences than I. I have to admit that I felt uncomfortable. All I really wanted to do was have the encounters end as quickly as possible. But God calls us to love our neighbors, and not just the ones who are like us, but the ones who are different, even to the point of being enemies.

With my son, embracing a bit of creepiness comes easily because I love him already. How do we show love to those who are different? We can be kind. We can find common interests. We can be inquisitive, which will help us understand them. And most of all, we can remember that God loves them and wants them to know Him if they don’t already.

Lord, help us to love one another!

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado