It's been awhile

Funny, it's been almost a year since I've last visited with you here. Wow...how time flies!

As I consider the past year, I am astounded at the person growth that the trials have afforded me. A forging of character that is earned not bestowed. Maybe it's the essence of maturity. Maybe it's the reality of joining a new decade in life and the little footprints that time leaves as it marches on, leaving the past as a reflective experience. What ever it is, it kind of makes me want to reveal the reality of gray in my hair. Though I probably won't. I still like the blonde facade!

The summary of the the last year would be: the reality of it all is that it really is all about love.

However, it's as much about learning about love as it is about giving and receiving it. Too often we try to force our understanding of love into boundaries of our current experience, when in fact, our current experience is the force that is designed to extended the boundaries of our love. When we refuse to allow the boundaries of our love to expand, we fail to grow and thrive. This kind of growth seems like reckless risk because it almost always requires a vulnerability that goes against our self protecting nature.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not pushing reckless love without boundaries in relationship. What I'm talking about is the kind of confident love that can clearly identify the difference between "you" and "me," but offers open, honest passion to "you" as if it were "me." In a kind of, "love your neighbor as you love yourself type of way." What I'm learning is that I have often failed to understand what it means to love myself in this context and thereby have no idea how to love my neighbor. The concept does bring up images of Mother Teresa, or some other seemingly selfless soul. I think that we over romanticize the lives of others in hopes of feeling better about our world. It's easier to celebrate virtue in someone else. It takes so much work to allow them to develop in ourselves!

Work? Yes! But anything that is worth having is going to cost. I say that unrequited, self-less love is worth the effort. Just the taste that I've been afforded has created and appetite for more. So, satisfaction comes for investing in what is most valuable. Let the boundaries expand!