Someone was contemplating the "meaning of life" and I was ruminating about this....I have always just KNOWN why I am here. We are all here to learn about love. How to show it, give it, receive it, explore it, taste it, revel in it, stretch it, grab it, keep it, lose it, shape it, touch it, smell it, study it, dive into it, spread it, multiply it, enjoy it, hold it, treasure it, glow with it....
Someone asked Jesus what the most important commandment was and he said "the greatest of these is love." Its pretty clear to me...we all want to feel loved, we all seek it out, and the greatest thing we can do is to LOVE to the best of our ability.
Love is messy, beautiful, complicated, powerful, elusive, perfect, strong, life-changing....nothing is more important to any of us. We all make choices in pursuit of love...we want to feel loved, we want to believe that others love us, we are wanted, needed, cherished, important....to someone else. Sometimes we make unwise or foolish choices and then we learn that it hurts to feel the opposite of love - many nasty emotions rise up when we feel unloved.
I wish I could respond to everyone in love...I truly believe we are to love others as Christ loves us....and no human is able to do this, as we are imperfect. We are here on Earth to learn about how to do so. We all come from the perfect, true love of the father, so we have the capacity inside of us to try and love as he does, and we are called to strive toward this goal. We will once again return to the perfect and true love that Christ gives us....whole and pure, complete and all encompassing...we will all be together to adore and worship him, even greater due to the lessons we have learned on Earth about how great and wonderful that unconditional and perfect love of the father really is.
Even as this is my belief, I see in myself how short I fall of such a goal. Oh my. When someone hurts me, I respond with bitterness, anger and hate. I lash out instead of trying to understand where they are coming from. You hurt me, I want to make you hurt...that is human. What I wish came naturally to me was that I could recognize the place you are coming from, perhaps you felt hurt by something I did or failed to do or to recognize your need for love as well. "Well, she is hurting from such an such and she just wants to feel loved as well, I should try to understand and respond in love instead of bitter revenge." Yea right. Knowing that God wants me to respond in love doesn't make it ANY easier to DO IT!!!
It is so EASY for me to fall over and over again into Satan's trap of showing hatred and bitterness instead of love, as it is for all of us. I can and still do, hold the BEST grudges ever. A huge part of love that I really have a problem with is FORGIVENESS. I have to do it over and over, sometimes there are a few people I have to dig down every day and keep forgiving them numerous times...as it bubbles up and I find it so difficult to not give in to the bitterness of my hurt. I think I am able to love greatly, but then I am also able to be hurt greatly. I understand how so many have to put up walls and shields because they have been hurt so many times they just can't deal with more. To let yourself love with all your heart, you also risk being crushed and shattered with all your heart as well.
Recently, my beloved soul mate dog Abbie went to be with Jesus. We connected on a deep level. I know God sent her to me because I needed her and she understands my soul. Animals are a wonderful model for us to learn from. I could write pages and pages on the subject of animals teaching us about unconditional love, so I won't expound on that here, but I let myself love Abbie with unconditional, free, total abandon....I gave her my heart, shared my soul with her, no holds barred, I dove in completely and loved her without regret, without holding back anything. We share a part of 1 soul...this I know...we recognized each other immediately and we are forever linked until that glorious day when we will be physically together again in Heaven.
But, to love another completely and totally, is to make yourself vulnerable and naked. I love her with a fierceness and a completeness that is powerful and glorious. She taught me so much about how much God loves us UNCONDITIONALLY and despite our shortcomings, our failings, our humanness...she gave me such JOY that when I had to let her fly to Jesus, it hurt me so deeply, ripped my soul in half, that I am struggling to let myself love my animal companions that I am blessed to have with me now with the same carefree abandon. I find myself holding back here and there, as I am afraid of that horrible and dark pain that will come when they have to be with Jesus as well. But I also have tasted what that complete and total love feels like and I want that again as well, so it compels me to keep trying, keep falling in love with my new girls a little bit more every day.
We constantly try to find love, give love, feel loved. We mess up, we fall down, we hurt. We learn, we file it away, we stand back up, dust ourselves off. We try again...we reach out, we try to find love, give love, feel loved. We are learning, stretching, exploring all about love....the many meanings, the many definitions of love...the many words for it, the many facets of it....its a complex and complicated mix of feelings and sensations. So many kinds of love, so many ways to touch it, shape it, find it, lose it....run toward it, run away from it....cherish it, take it for granted....it takes an entire lifetime to learn about it. Some people learn quickly and their purpose is fulfilled early....some of us...well....we take a whole lifetime to figure it out.
The rate I'm going, I'll live to be hundreds of years old to figure it out!!!!
My beloved nephews are the light of my life, as is my husband and dog.
