The Greatest gift of all is love

We can give love to others and we can give it to ourselves. Love is the purest form of validation which is what we all ultimately seek in life.

To love is to forgive and look past our own faults and failures and those of others. It is easy to hold a grudge and not forgive someone, or ourselves, for some slight or even intentional offense, a mistake or error in judgement. Human nature seems particularly suited to grabbing hold of these cold stones.

Holding onto a grudge, fanning the heat of anger is our own burden to carry through life, our own sack of stones. While focusing on the burden we foster, we are unable to understand the other. We allow our anger and bitterness to obfuscate what is before us.

To paraphrase St. Francis,

Grant that I may not so much seek

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;

In this Holiday Season perhaps it is time to unburden ourselves of the parcels of resentment and anger that we carry with us. May we all cast a few of these stones into the past and move forward with our loads a little lighter, the path before us a little clearer and the people in our lives a little closer.

Forgiveness is a gift we can all afford and one which all would be grateful to receive.

Live well my friends.

Andy