Yes, I know the word 'love' has been used so much it's almost become a cliche in itself. Everyone has their own version of love; their own idea of what love is to them. The good news is that I'm not here to debate or discuss what love means in all its myriad forms. Because I can't.
What I can do is share what I feel love is. I grew up in church, and I used to keep hearing the word 'love' repeated very often. How God loves us as His children. That love is 'patient and kind, doesn't keep record of wrongs...'. I was also blessed with a family where we were comfortable both verbally and physically expressing love- my parents used to hug and kiss my brother and myself as kids. In fact we still do.
Recently something popped out at me. I recalled hearing something like. "we need to love others as we love ourselves". Being an English teacher, from a grammatical standpoint, this seemed like a conditional statement; we can only love others if we love ourselves. So every time we hurt others we're actually hurting ourselves. It's like looking into a mirror. If we don't respect ourselves how can we respect others? If we don't love ourselves how can we love others? If we don't follow our passion and reach our fullest potential how can we tell others to do it too?
So the next time we into a mirror, lets look deep into our souls and ask ourselves the question." Do I love me?"
In a lighter vein " mirror mirror on the wall....."
ReplyDeleteNice write up.