Day 18 :: Practice unconditional love
Sometimes, pictures tell the story in a way that words cannot. This came in without a name attached–I’ve asked the sender to let me know who they are! I loved the photos so much. Here is what she wrote:
"If I had 37 days left to live, I would capture every sweet, sweet moment with my only child. He is my life….my compass, my joy, my sometimes sorrow and stress! He has guided me, in his childhood innocence, to a place that I never knew existed. He has taught me that it doesn’t matter how clean my kitchen is, how many loads of laundry there are to do. He doesn’t care what my hair looks like or the 10 pounds I always want to lose.
He loves patiently, kindly and with abiding faith in his momma as a guide to all things good.
As in I Corinthians 12-13, ‘Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.’"
I wonder what it would take for us to get back to the place where her son is–that place before judgment. What would practicing unconditional love (of ourselves, as much as of others) look like? As Rumi has said, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." In our 37 days, let us practice unconditional love, like this child, our greatest teacher.
