Love

 

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

"Where there is love, there is life" -Mahatma Gandhi

 

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

-Mother Teresa

"A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love."  -Max Muller

 

 

 "Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along." Romans 13:8

"Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do...but how much love we put in that action." -Mother Teresa
 

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Love begins at home. I have been reminded of that so much lately, this simple yet profound truth that what we cultivate at home will have an impact on the world.

 

I only need to look at my children to know this. I am raising little people who shine their spirits into the world and they make a difference.

 

Youthful, passionate, thirsting for knowledge and discovery, loving and honest, my boys bring me a world which I have long forgotten and struggle to remember. A world where the smallest and simplest of things fill up the heart if you only let it.

 

 A banner on the fireplace with hearts that they painted, proudly and with joy.

 

 

We look at the banner and it reminds us not that we need pretty things to make us happy, but that we need what it represents: the togetherness a mama and her children experience in the act of letting go of the day's worries and making time and space for painting; bright watercolors hitting white pages...transformation. Love manifested.

 

 

 

Ever since becoming a mama, Valentine's Day has been one of my favorite holidays aside from birthdays because I am filled up when I can shower my children with love. For $5 in supplies I transformed their breakfast area into a love pit-stop. A place to find happiness before heading out into the world. I heard their squeals all the way upstairs when they came bounding down for the day.

 

"It REALLY IS VALENTINE's DAY!!!" my 4-year old shouted to his brother.  

 

Heart shaped sandwiches packed in the lunchbox, bags of handmade valentines lovingly tucked in backpacks and dressed all in red, I squeezed my boys extra hard this morning and told them that I love them every day just this much, but today is special because they will see people all around them celebrating love, too, and that is a REALLY cool thing to see. I told them to tell their teachers and bus drivers thank you for loving them and I put them on the bus with tears of joy. I was filled up with love by 8 am.

 

  

 

 

The saying that goes something like "if you want to experience love, then love someone else" or "if you want to feel happy, make someone else happy first" is imprinted in my heart. I want to make others happy. I want to stop thinking so much about how life is affecting ME, and I want to reach out and give someone else something that THEY need.

 

You can start right at home or right wherever you are. You can give the best of yourself to your family and friends, colleagues or strangers FIRST and not expect anything in return.   Daily grace is here right now within reach, and there is always the choice to love.

 

I choose love.

 

Happy Valentine's Day. You are loved!!