Love
Happy Friday!! Hope your week has been quick and painless and your weekend plans include something you enjoy.
Today I want to talk about love. Who doesn't love love?! What it means to me and how it is included in so many different aspects of your life. Love is important for a good life. Love is important for happiness. Just speaking about it instantly makes a person happier.
Love for me as a whole includes: selflessness, gratitude and willingness. You have to be kind and love others and in return open to receiving it back. Love can be a pot of coffee brewed, spending time with someone you care about, helping others, the big things and the daily routines, listening when they need a shoulder or just continuing to show up and make an effort.
You begin your life as a small child, loving your parents and siblings, extended family members and friends. It is said that a mothers love is the highest form of love. Everything a mama has to go thru in pregnancy, it's hard not to believe that is true. A fathers love is wonderful too, they have the strong guidance that a woman doesn't carry. A well rounded kind of love between a Dad and Mom and child. I think this is vital in your upbringing to have a solid foundation of knowing what love is. Obviously there are many different ideas of what family looks like. Whatever your family might include: guarantee love is at the center. This is not a perfect world though, and I know there are so many children not shown love and raised in horrible circumstances, my heart hurts for those. It's just not fair and unfortunate. No words.
After your parents, the most important love will be with your partner. Unlike parents, you get to pick your spouse. That person who makes you feel like sunshine, that person you can't live without. When people have similar interests and values, relationships work. It's important to try and be on the same page as your spouse and stay in love. Knowing my husband now for umm gosh 16 years, I have been blessed to have been loved by him and in return love him back. He makes it easy. He is thoughtful and caring and actually is much better at showing his love than I am. I'm a work in progress. I look back at my childhood and while I didn't have a horrible one, it was mostly idealistic, I think being a child from divorce, it caused me to be a little difficult when it comes to showing love and affection. I catch myself being shut off and try to continually work on myself. I am thankful for a partner who doesn't give up easy, who loves me unconditionally and on my grumpy days. He is the best half of me and God knew what he was doing when he placed him in my life.
Love your job? Your career is validated and valuable. Not many can say they love their job. Many many people out there are miserable in their careers. I can truly say, I still love my career all these years later. For those who might not know, I am a respiratory therapist. I have been practicing for nearly 15 years. Time flies! I knew this career would have highs and lows but COVID almost stole my joy. It nearly burnt my flame. The past couple years have been challenging but I have gotten back to a solid place and I am better for it. If you don't like your career, find something that makes you happy. Go back to school! Do it! Life is too darn short to be miserable. Love your career!
Friendship! This is a whole other love section. Gosh, I have wonderful friends. Not many. The ones I have count though. They are there for me always and vice versa. A good talk with a girlfriend out at dinner or just on the phone lifts your spirits. They usually know you better than you know yourself and love you in spite of your ways. In this season of my life with chasing kiddos, I like easy, non commital friendships, obviously I'm always here, but we can pick right up where we left off like no time has passed. I can commit to a text message much easier than a phone call and that's ok! Someday me and my girlfriends are going to be eating cheesecake in our robes like the Golden Girls.
Last but the most important kind of love. Agape love. The love of Jesus. His love for you is perfect and ever present. I have made it a goal to love more like Jesus. It would be an impossible task but just to make a point to see the good in the world. To care more for the ones who are far from him. He left the 99 to win the one lost soul. He has made it his goal to know you and love you. Thank you for loving me in spite of my failures. As a healthcare worker, being at the bedside with sick patients, I really have it lain on my heart to love like Jesus. Our church moto is Be Jesus with Skin On. I love that. I want to be the best version of myself I can be at the end of the day. I hope you do too. If more of us lived with those words in our hearts and meant it, this world would be a sweeter, kinder place to live.
I hope this blog post made you feel all the love and my wish for you is that you have some of these types of love in your own life. It's never too late to find it and even the hardest of hearts can be softened with L-O-V-E! Have a wonderful love filled weekend!!
