To be Loved, as to Love;

Greetings Dear Reader,

It is amazing to me how many things I do, we all do to be reassured that we are loved.  So much of our life is spent trying to find ways to be loved by others.  Consider all the ways in which we groom, appoint, and present ourselves in order to receive approval.  Vast amounts of resources go into assuring that we dress right, fit in, or be what we must be to gain the approval of others. 

From birth onward we want to know that we are loved.  It is such a seminal need that the lack of it in our developmental years leads to so many differing dysfunctions.  We become the things we do to get others to reassure us we are loved.  I have placed foolish and unjust expectations on so many that I love just to inappropriately measure if I am loved.  I did not realize I did this and undoing takes so much time and energy. 

When I seek to be loved it rarely works.  When I invest my energy in loving others the result is far different.  If I adopt a position of doing things out of love for others then I am not going to manipulate things.  I am not going to be demanding or angry.  What I am going to be is patient, kind, forgiving, and investing in the better of others. 

It is in loving others that I can find my worth and value. I can see the impact of love on others and it sends a clear message that I make a difference in the lives around me.  If I fail to show that love others distance themselves from me.  It is in loving others that I find the ability to sow peace, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand;

To be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. – Saint Francis of Assisi

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."