I’ve learned that ‘Love’ begins with me.  And how I love, is on my terms…. and my love may not look the way you see love.  It may not feel like love sometimes either; but I know what I’m giving.  It may not be what you think love is; but I’m operating from the love within me.

What I’m learning is that I am the source of that love and being so; I am also the one to cultivate it in a way that creates growth, not death.   I feel it was described exquisitely by Mother Teresa when she said:  

People are often unreasonable and self-centered 

Forgive them anyway

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish motives 

Be kind anyway

If you are honest people may cheat you 

Be honest anyway

If you find happiness people may be jealous 

Be happy anyway

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow

Do good anyway

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough

Give your best anyway

For you see in the end it is between you and God

It was never between you and them anyway. 

I love this because it shows in word, the feelings in my heart, the things God knows.  No one else has the power to decide, control, convince, or change what’s there in my heart. I get to decide it.  

When I choose to forgive, it’s not because you deserve to be forgiven or are forgivable, that part’s not really up to me. But see, your actions don’t dictate my decisions. I will forgive even when you or I are being unreasonable and self-centered.

The reason is because it’s not about you, it’s about me.  When I operate from a place of kindness, I know what my motive is. I know that I am cultivating that which is within me. 

Perhaps someone might think that because my kindness isn’t what they want, that I am being selfish. I’ve been accused of it. At one point in time, I tried to convince you of my motive and that I was kind; but it didn’t matter.  I tried to change and it wasn’t enough. 

You may think I’m even being unkind just because you don’t like what I’m doing. It’s not about you, it’s about me. I decide when to be and what kindness is from me. I will be honest.  It is truly insulting and hurtful to be dishonest to “save you” from what I think you can or can’t handle.

It’s insulting to try to control your perceptions.  Honesty is hard at times, it can feel easier to lie for the faint of heart.  Truth can feel hurtful. It might feel unkind, but if I love you; my gift to you is honesty. Then, it is a beautiful gift.  

So, when I love you,  I promise you I will respect you enough to be honest anyway.  It’s not only about you when I decide to be honest with you, it is freedom for me. I am honest because that’s the most loving, respectful thing I can give another person.

It comes from the respect of myself.  So I’ll be honest even if you don’t like it, because it’s about me.  I choose my own happiness, and I even choose when I’m not happy.  I own both of those states. 

I don’t need to feel happy all the time; but I am in happiness all the time.  My happiness is my own. What I do, the good I do, is from my heart, not what surrounds me.  I know my own struggles. I know my own sadness. 

I do choose to be happy in spite and despite all of my challenges.  I won’t back down from the fullness of my happiness because someone might feel jealous either. I’ll be fully happy anyway and love the choice I’m making.  

Remember, I said I’d be honest.  That means anytime, even when I’m not fully in the state of happiness, I won’t deny the sadness I feel. I don’t pretend that I am there when I am not.  I allow where I’m at to exist. 

When I decide to change my state, I’ll do what it takes to do that, because I choose it.  I didn’t do ‘it’ for you, I did ‘it’ because my heart directed me to.  I promised myself that I’d keep following my heart.  It’s a commitment to myself that I won’t let go of again. 

If no one remembers, it’s ok. I’m still going to follow my heart. The night Grant died, I betrayed what my heart told me. I wasn’t honest.  I felt, in my heart, “I don’t want you to go flying tonight.” I didn’t say that.  I won’t do that again. 

I know the cost of betraying the truth in my heart and now I know how to be honest with myself and how to share.  I know the peace that comes with sharing the truth, because I know too, how high the cost of hiding is. 

I’ve lived with that now for years.  It’s not that I could have saved him, that wasn’t my job.  It’s that I didn’t share my truth and so I lived in a lie and lost my heart that night.  The work to find my heart and the love that’s there is the thing that I’ve looked for. I am finding it again after everything was lost in there. 

I’m sure about what’s going on between me and the only power that matters to me. It is between me and them, not you and I.   So I know, confidently; that I can walk forward in this life, forgiving and filling myself with the hope I once thought was lost.