Sunday, June 05, 2011

Responding with Love

Listen and accept.
Be patient and trust.
Care and be open.
Love and be helpful.

When people say and do things that upset us, we cannot respond with love.
When we disagree with others choices, we cannot be respectful and accepting.
When we are resentful and critical, we cannot really open to hear what they are saying and feeling.
When we are needy or greedy, seeking our own way, we cannot be present with what they want.

Our response-ability is to Love.
To be truly helpful and healing , we must be able and willing to respond with Love.
When we cannot be truly helpful and healing, we are called to step away and take care of our own needs.
When we cannot be present with another, we are on notice that our needs are too great to truly care.

Thus, we must take full and total responsibility for ourselves and our own fulfillment and well-being.
We must take the time to listen and respond to our own needs, without needing others to care for us.
We must stop depending on others to take care of us when we have neglected ourselves.
We must demonstrate self care, self love and self respect by caring for our selves.

Life teaches us to depend on others to meet our needs.
So we teach others to depend on us to meet their needs.
This would be a perfect reciprocal arrangement provide everyone did their part perfectly.
However we cannot always count on others since circumstances change unpredictably.

We can best respond with love when our own needs are met.
We can best respect others needs when we have handled our own needs consciously.
We can best be available to meet others needs with kindness and encouragement by meeting our own.
Teaching others to care for themselves requires that we care for ourselves.

Listen to and accept yourself.
Be patient and trust you own choices.
Care about yourselves and be open to new ways to love your well.
Love yourself in the best ways you can and always be willing to be helpful to yourself and to others.

Tonight at Walmart a couple needed a ride 20 minutes in the opposite direction we were going.
It was a rainy afternoon.  It felt right.
And we could do it, because we were at peace, in love and feeling content.
God blesses us all when we are willing to respond with Love.

Give yourself to Love for Love and Love will come to you.
Blessings to us all as we share the Love we have.
Betty Lue