We are united by Love

Many of us have turned to attack one another as we react to fear. A fear we would not have if Love were the master of our lives.

We have to be very careful at all times, but these times are particularly treacherous. There are many trials we are facing, but the main one is our ability to love one another.

When so many people start preaching violence, neglect and exclusion as means to do what is good or build a peaceful community, the darkness of this world is in full effect.

We don’t pick sides, but we must take a stand. Love is our stand.

We are not called to be silent and live in a spiritual cave, but to use every opportunity to be agents of peace.

We are not loving one another by keeping silent to avoid conflict, when our hearts feel strongly against what is being said or done. We can, and should, show our love by speaking peacefully and firmly as we assert our values founded on Love.

We are not called to oppress, but to speak up for Love, forgiveness, compassion, peace – and this not at the expense of others.

We don’t have to speak against anything or anyone. Let’s raise our voices to speak only about the Love that can unite us and not join any other conversation that is focused on dividing us.

The Queen and timeless Love

We have been blessed for 96 years with a Queen who believed in the divine and eternal power of Love. She lived a long life that reflected that faith, positioned as one of the rare peacemakers of this world, and building constant, everlasting bridges worldwide with the labor of her loving, forgiving and compassionate heart.

Her absence leaves us with a sentiment of orphanhood as we navigate this world with less and less leaders inspired by this Love. However, while we are in mourning, we must remind ourselves that this is just a brief separation, as our Queen is now where we all long to be, and where we will all be joined together soon.

May this time be one of deeper reflection about who we are called, and meant to be. And may our Queen’s loving heart that made us love her so much live on as tangible inspiration for each of us to keep seeking the same willingness to always serve others in Love.

Love covers all our flaws

Have you spent the last couple of years making concessions so you would fit in? A lot of us have. And while these circumstances were a trigger of fit-in behavior, we should take this opportunity to better understand why we gave in.

For what reasons, and for how long are we willing to dissolve ourselves and lose our own identities in order to be a ‘part’ of a world that does not love us? A world that will drop us if we fail?

The answer is: not too long until we become deeply frustrated, angry and bitter. And what will really haunt us is not our difficulty to forgive others, but to forgive ourselves as we live with the consequences of our own decisions knowing that we could have made better ones had we not given in to the fear of not fitting in.

We should all know by now that whenever we try to live by strict rules, we are bound to fail at some point. We are human, and thus we are inherently flawed. We are living the life that others expect us to live when we make an effort everyday to be the perfect people that we are not.

When we accept that we are not in control, and that we never were or ever will be, that frees us from living under unfair expectations and introduces us to the real life we never had before.

This real life is the one we are all called to live. And it is only when we surrender to Love that we start living it.

Because Love covers all our flaws.

And when we put Love first in life, and allow it to guide us, we do not experience regrets. With Love, life no longer feels like a countdown, because we know Love transcends space and time.

Love allows us to transcend the world and start living without fear, especially the fear of death that drives many of us to make hasty decisions thinking we are running out of time.

But so what if we are running out of time? Love makes a day feel like a year, and a year feel like a day. It gives us a conscience that is no longer bound by feelings of who we are not, or not being good enough, and takes us on a journey of who we were always meant to be.

With Love, we live what we can, how we can, when we can.

I had no trouble being myself in the last couple of years and lived a relatively normal life. And the secret is simple: I know how to be subtle about my different outlook in life. Instead of using these differences to confront others, I focus on similarities that can unite us.

Remember: we need to be patient with those who think differently.

We are not called to turn our differences into instruments of divisiveness. When we keep Love in the foreground of how we treat each other, these differences become secondary and often don’t even come up.

At the same time, we are also not called to be perfect, but to be loving. And to love each other regardless of our different choices in life, and our shortcomings.

When we live this way, we do not feel the need to fit in. Putting Love first in our lives gives us this confidence and allows us to enjoy the peace, joy and hope that come when we confidently know why we don’t fit in this world.

Love has no expiry date

The difficult situations we go through in life help shape our trust and faith in Love, as God is Love.

If we surrender it all to him and allow him to walk us through these storms with a loving heart, even if hurting, we find peace and they become bearable.

It is never about the outcome of these situations, but how we don’t allow them to trample the hope we have.

And this hope is the fact we do not have an expiry date and are thus not to be concerned about our love bonds ever expiring.

Living the spirituality of Love

Our calling is not to engage in a spirituality degraded into a religion mixed with human culture.

Instead, we are called to allow this spirituality to occupy every part of our heart, including our mind, emotion and will.

This is how our mind can change, and we can turn toward the One who can straighten every avenue in our heart with Love.

We have to begin walking in this absolutely new way, and build a relationship not with a place or people, but with the One who can genuinely transform our lives.

This is the only walk worth walking, because it gives us the freedom to be who we can be, according with our conscience, and not who religion or human culture expects us to be.

When we live in truth, Love always makes a way.

Trading control for peace

Our worries can sometimes paralyze us and rob us of the peace it takes to make good decisions. But we are not alone. And the One who made us wants us to give our worries to him.

When we seek him first, be it by reading his word, praying or by loving one another, we enjoy his peace.

And he lifts the weight from our shoulders.

I love reading his word while savouring my breakfast, to start my day with what’s most important in my life. And it is his message of love that nurtures and prepares me for sleep.

He teaches me to acknowledge my struggles, but let troubling thoughts go by like clouds in the sky.

When we engage with our worries, we invite them to stay.

Sometimes we stubbornly insist on being in control. That’s when we know it’s time to pray and cry to him about our struggles, instead of trying to figure them out by ourselves.

He always nurtures our spirit with his love, giving us the ability to forgive and go through the day with a grateful spirit.

When I humbly seek his wisdom, I live better.

Trusting that he’s taking care of us makes us overflow with love in the spirit and all our worries are swallowed by his peace.

2022: A fresh start with Love

On January 5th I celebrate 8 years since my conversion. It feels like I’ve lived hundreds of years, yet I feel so rejuvenated because everyday is a fresh start when Love is our master.

This is a yearly post and I take the opportunity to share a bit of my story again today. I know it encourages believers and non-believers alike.

When I was an atheist, two psychologists helped me navigate and cope with a series of life events that crushed me. But they never healed me. 

To say that I was hanging by a thread would be an understatement. And although I have a lot of appreciation for deeply humane and loving psychologists like the ones who helped me, there’s only so much they can do. 

I couldn’t imagine myself going one week without therapy. At that point I felt emotionally crippled. My life was a full-time burden.

That’s when I did the unimaginable. One night I surrendered and asked God for help. Being an atheist, I had no idea what I was doing. But I had a crushed, humble heart as I called him. And God listened.

God healed overnight what two different psychologists couldn’t heal in years.

For the first time in my life I knew that there was one who loved me just the way I always wanted to be loved. And his divine love set me free.

God’s love worked in me to forgive others who had been the root cause of a lot of emotional turmoil in my life. And he also taught me to forgive myself.

Without God’s love, I could never have healed. 

It is his divine and eternal love in me that makes it possible to forgive everyone and the world everyday, regardless of merit. And heal.

Embracing the unknown

As a new year starts, we are stricken with the belief that we need to expect “good” things. Yet the “good” in our lives that is genuinely life-changing often comes out of the worst of circumstances that we call “bad”.

Regardless of what our previous year was like, what makes the new one better is our willingness to embrace the unknown. To be ready and willing to make bold moves in life with Love as our guide. To let go of other people’s expectations and focus on being truthful to our hearts, expecting nothing in return.

Whatever happened in our lives last year, whatever will happen in our lives this year, was and will always be for our own good. There is a perfect balance of “good” and “bad” each day to bring about our spiritual transformation into who we are meant to be.

In this new year, may all of us allow Love to be our wisdom. And embrace the unknown of the eternal life unfolding before our eyes everyday with confident faith.

Love builds resilience

It is God’s love that gives us the resilience to walk through the most terrifying moments with the confidence that they will yield good outcomes of a spiritual nature in our lives. 

Holding on to his divine love saves us from losing our ability to be grateful, loving and forgiving in the cruelest of circumstances. 

As we walk with God, we know everything is going to pass. At the end of the tunnel, there is light, goodness and unfailing love.

Forgiving our abusers to heal

Life isn’t about what happens to us, but how we react to it. If we choose hatred and unforgiveness, we become a reflection of both.

I watch countless true crime docuseries and the look on most victims of abuse, or relatives of these victims, is unmistakable. They spend most of their lives enslaved by resentment, hopelessness and an unforgiving heart.

They bury themselves alive and blame their abusers for it. Yet nobody has the power to bury us alive except ourselves.

We become a reflection of the people we choose to hate by keeping ourselves connected to them through a bond of hatred.

The desire to move forward is not enough. These chains can only be broken with love and forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an undeserved grace we receive. When we know that, we are humbled and filled with the desire to extend it to others. Because we all fall short of being good.

Loving ourselves is not genuine unless we can also love our abusers. As I explained in ‘Loving people we dislike’, we can love people we dislike and still not keep them in our lives if they don’t show repentance.

We need to allow ourselves to be divinely filled with forgiveness and love for our abusers.

Only then can we truly love ourselves, and heal.

Loving people we dislike

Many of us don’t know the difference between loving and liking one another. Keeping people close that we don’t genuinely like doesn’t work and can wreak havoc in our lives.

We can love everyone spiritually. But liking anyone depends on compatibility and is for select people who, through their actions, have earned our appreciation and company.

When someone treats people (including ourselves) in hurtful ways, we are perfectly able to love them – if we genuinely have a relationship with God. But we will not be able to like them. They don’t deserve us, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

After all, not all company edifies us. We seek good company that we like: peaceful, joyful, loving, forgiving, thoughtful. And, yes, interesting and fun.

Company that makes us feel uncomfortable, judged, hurt, offended, manipulated, insulted or even just bored and disinterested is therefore not likeable. It is a blessing to love these people, but we don’t have to seek their company or force ourselves to like them.

We need to learn to gracefully handle people whose presence doesn’t edify us. They don’t need to be active participants in our lives.

Our calling is to love them. Pray for them. Help them. And wish for their hearts to be transformed so they can enjoy a love that will enable them to treat us as we expect to be treated.

We can bring them back into our lives as friends, family or partners if they demonstrate a change of attitude with actions (not words) for a significant amount of time, so we see consistency.

Remember: We are called to love one another, not to like everyone.

Anything beyond that is self-righteous and will destroy us.