LOVE, & Other Four Letter Words! Part 2 – Simple Pleasures

Yesterday, I purchased a new lunch box. I was so happy with myself to finally have something that reflects my style to carry my food in. It’s cute and chic (for a lunch box) and it can easily be mistaken for a handbag. I adore the little thing and find that it reminds me of my childhood when I received my very first lunch box. It was a lime-green, square case with the Care Bears all over the outside AND on the thermos. It made me so happy to carry my lunch to elementary school in that little box. And I was equally happy yesterday to carry my lunch to work in my little, grown-up box. So happy, in fact that I random shared this information with two strangers in the grocery store, and walked around my job with the bag in hand much longer than necessary. It’s funny the things that bring us joy on any level.

Simple pleasures truly do shape our lives beautiful, just like simple pains shape it into a heartache if we dwell there too long. Love is interesting because we keep looking for it outside of ourselves. I used to feel lonely all the time. The work day would end and there would be no calls waiting for me. I could give a 12 or 20 hour day for months and years (and I did) and there seemed to be no one to notice or care. My entire family was doing the same thing. And when we stopped to rest I always noticed the silence and my desire to have some one looking for me, noticing me, calling and checking for me. I thought there was no one. Outside of our world of work and service it seemed as if no one saw us (me), as if no one cared. We are community servants; it’s kind of a family trade. We give our lives to others for love. In fact, that’s what saved me. I remembered that we serve for the love of God and others. And in that memory I rediscovered the Golden rule (in my words): to give it away and it will come back to you the way you need it when you need it.

I am still a single woman but now I pick up the phone and call people who probably are not receiving calls at the end of their days. I connect and quit waiting and complaining because my life is happening right now and I might as well participate in it right now. I have been medicating my simple pains by focusing on others for years. In fact, some of those people that I called to love on have passed on and those conversations will live on as a gift that I keep closer and closer as the years go by.

I have learned the hard way that unaddressed heartaches lead to foolish decisions. So pay attention to yourself and the things that make you vulnerable and weak to bad ideas and wrong relationships because

1. The lies we tell ourselves are a block to real love.
2. Never having joys of our own is a weight to the people who (try to) love us.
3. Refusing to grow up and change for the better will get us the same type of relationships that we have always had and consequently the same type of heartaches, headaches (whatever you want to call it).

Love is so much more than romance. It’s also me wanting the best and my willingness to give the best to the people I say that I love. Let’s face it, “love” is the ready topic of every other movie and ready thought of every other single, unmarried individual over the age of 30, excuse me 27. We want love, this captivating all encompassing, us against the world kind of love with another person. And yes like we discovered earlier, hearts can get broken and hurt and that makes love risky and a little dirty, but many of us feel like it’s worth it. Well, I have collected (from the experts) a few tips for those of us who plan to dive in…so stay tuned

MizJAI…finding the love again

Tagged as: love, of faith