I have not had much time for the physical creations that I love so much lately. My focus has been more on the inner creation of myself. I want to be the person that my Heavenly Father wants me to be and often I fall far short of that individual. That is why I am so grateful for repentance and the ability to keep trying to do better.
I tend to have strong opinions and I am very hard headed. Sometimes, I have forgotten that the person standing in front of me is more important than the idea that I am sure I am right about. Which for the record I am right 99% of the time! ;) As I have pondered all of this I have begun to think a lot about love and service. Those are key to everything. Me loving those around me through service will cause more softening towards the things that I know are right then all the heated debates in the world and even if they never come around to my way of thinking I am a better person for the service rendered.
I have been thinking a lot about this lately and then this morning my 8 year old came down the stairs wearing a cape. Several years ago we had one of those panicked mornings where suddenly a child remembered that they were supposed to come to school dressed as a super hero or some such thing - I can't even remember the exact assignment or event, but I do remember that in literally 10 minutes I whipped up a cape. I had a fabric on hand that was covered in hearts (this is when it pays to be a fabric hoarder!). I then took another fabric that was covered in peace symbols and cut out a large L and put it in the center of the cape. She was Love Girl! Her super power was LOVE.
I had completely forgotten all of this until she came down the stairs this morning in that cape and the thought hit me so hard - LOVE IS A SUPERPOWER! It is the greatest superpower one can posses and it can literally change the world and those around you. What an amazing superpower to have and we all posses the ability to love. We may need to work on loving some people in our lives more - you know the hard to love people around you - but we can all choose to love more fully and to not worry about the rest. Christ turned the other cheek and loved those around him - even those who crucified him - how can we not look past the little slights and choose love instead of other emotions like hatred, jealously, envy, being offended, and selfishness.
I am going to try to love more fully through making myself more available to serve those around me. I am going to try to not be so hot headed and instead remember that more hearts will be changed through love then through me getting worked up about someone not seeing things the right way. ;) I am going to choose love! I will definitely fail sometimes as I am only human and will never be perfect like Christ was while on this Earth, but that is where I will hope that this will spread and that those around me will also choose love and choose to move past my weak moments and instead remember my strong ones and remember that I am not all bad. That is how you choose love!
I encourage everyone to CHOOSE LOVE! That is the only way this messed up world is ever going to get any better.
UPDATE! UPDATE! Yah, I just finished this post like 2 minutes ago, but a thought hit me that I didn't want to lose. SO, here it is.
Sometimes those around us who are the hardest to love are the ones who need it the most. I think back to the times when I was the hardest to love and I know that what I needed more than anything was love and acceptance from those around me even though I maybe didn't deserve it or was shutting myself away for one reason or another. Some of those times I was going through gut wrenching personal battles that almost no one knew about and I really needed love and understanding even when I may not have been the funnest person to be around. So, the next time you encounter someone who snaps at you or is negative or is hard to be around maybe try to sprinkle a little extra love their way, because chances are they need it more than anyone else right then. Thought done. :)
