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
 

****

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!!

My heart is full

"The unthankful heart discovers no mercy; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings." --Henry Ward Beecher

  

Yesterday I woke up at 9:30 am (a birthday miracle!) and came downstairs a newly turned 31 year old, but I felt like a child when I saw the streamers, painted watercolor pictures by my boys and wrapped presents.

 

I was taken back to my childhood and the excitement of coming downstairs on birthday mornings. There were always the handmade birthday signs hanging all over the house created by my siblings and parents with funny drawings and silly poems, homemade birthday cake and festive family parties. We did it up big back then and I continue that tradition with my own kids, who now have what I call the Mommy birthday bug!

My oldest was on a mission last week to do some secret sign making while his Mama was at work and when I came home to give him a goodnight kiss one night, he sleepily told me that he painted me the most fabulous picture and it was up really high and that I couldn't see it until my birthday.


Watercolor by Caden

 

Then there was the little one handing me my gift begging me to open it, they just couldn't stand the suspense. While I was unwrapping it, I glanced over at my hubby who looked like a boy opening his own birthday gift and I wondered for a moment if it was some sort of electronic as he seemed really excited about the present. I felt the tears welling up when multiple pictures pasted to cardboard spilled from the package with a lovely turquoise guitar strap.  The boys were yelling that Daddy had bought me a guitar and it will be here on Tuesday.
 

 

I named her Opal Mae. My great grandma's name was Opal and somehow it just fit the beauty of the guitar. Ya, and I realize I'm weird that I give my guitar a name and identity!

Now she hangs out all day with her guitar boys. They make sweet music.

 

It was a moment I don't think I will ever forget, a feeling of pure gratitude but also that it was all too much, too kind. The signs, the boys and their precious smiles and "happy birthday mommy's" and hard hugs and then this beautiful guitar and the pride in my husband's eyes that he was able to gift me something so special that both he and I will cherish. I dug deep in that moment as I felt my heart filling up and I prayed out my thank you's and my but this is too much and I felt the tug back, don't push this away, accept it, receive it, find the beauty in it. There was that flit of doubt that perhaps the guitar was a splurge that we didn't need right now, that surely someone doesn't deserve such a wonderful gift simply for turning 31 and after we had decided our new camera would be more than enough this year.

But in that moment, seeing the joy in the eyes of those that I love and cherish, I accepted it and I revelled in the receiving of it as they in the giving. In the kitchen that day I felt the Spirit of love in all it's magnitude come sweeping through our house, and I woke up to  remember what I had forgotten while I allowed myself to doubt. I remembered what life is really about and why we do the things we do. It's not about the signs, birthday cakes or playing the Beatles birthday song, not traditions or expectations that birthdays have to go a certain way, even. It's about the giving and receiving of love in it's purest form. It's about the gift I receive every day when I wake up to give my care and love to my gorgeous and healthy little boys and at night when I go to sleep next to a man who cares so deeply that he finds a 31st birthday a good opportunity to show it. It's about accepting, humbly, the kindness and generosity of love that flows through others in the same way it flows through me when I reach out to give. "We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse." --Anne Swetchine

 The best birthday gift of all was being with the ones I love, spending a night out with my guy and hugging my boys. "Whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something celestial, divine, and, consequently, imperishable.” --Aristotle

 

My heart is just full and I am thankful.

 

Flowers from my mother-in-law :)

My little birdies amongst the birthday cards. Love birds.