Article January 24, 1983 Issue

No penalty for loving

LAURA E. LOVETT MURPHY

When my mother passed on, I received a letter from a friend, a Christian Scientist, whose mother and husband had both passed on within a few months of each other.

"I refused to be made . . . sad or unhappy because I love them," she wrote. "There is no penalty for loving."

I pondered this message. No penalty for loving? Why, of course! How could there be a penalty when the sacred pages of the Bible exhort us to love one another? Jesus spoke tenderly to the twelve disciples during his Last Supper with them, saying: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." ^{John 13:34, 35.} The Old Testament tells us, "The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it." ^{Prov. 10:22.}