Learning to Love Them Anyway.

"Let today be the day you learn the grace of letting go, and the power of moving on." ~ Steve Maroboli

I was thinking over a few things this morning, as I often do each day and while watching the sunrise. For me, this is my time for peaceful introspection - and pondering over those things which sometimes get in the way.

I had been reading a story, you see - about a young Mother who lost her only son to gang violence. Shot down in the dead of night, he took his last breath along a cold empty street - and clutching the small package his Mother sent him to retrieve.

The boy who took his life, was just 14 at the time - and had never once known the true power of love. Born to drug addicted parents, and raised in an environment not suitable for life and living...he took to the streets, believing this to be the only place he belonged.

Imagine being just 14 and having such thoughts? That your life, wasn't of value - and that love, wasn't something for you to know. And on that night, he pulled the trigger to prove he was a man.

The boy was later convicted of his crimes, and incarcerated.

In time, the Mother joined a victim's support group - which would bring her once again before her son's killer. In the days leading up to their meeting, loss filled the grief-stricken Mother's mind with rage; and her blood boiled with hate...thinking over they many things she wished him to feel.

But, on the day of her visit something happened - she learned through the prison guards that not one person had visited the boy. He had been there, alone, for nearly a year - without so much as a call.

And, as she sat before this young man - she realized, that this was a child that had never known joy of a Mother's love.

If I told you what happened next, I don't know that you would fully believe me - but the Mother began to visit the boy each day, carrying with her this hope that, in time, perhaps two hearts might be healed.

And, in one of the most beautiful expressions of compassion and forgiveness - in the end, this Mother adopted that boy.

In doing so, she gave the gift of a Mother's love to a boy...and in return, she regained her own inner peace.

My dears, there's a most beautiful grace to letting go...and an even greater power to moving on. Truth be told, I think sometimes we've got it all wrong - thinking we must heal first in order to forgive...


But, what if, the truest healing comes by way of compassion?

And, perhaps in forgiving others we are giving to ourselves?

Just a little something to consider...

My dears, if I may leave you with this - a gentle reminder for all of your tomorrows, that we may always find a way...to love, in spite of everything.

The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
 

― Kent M. Keith