I think my greatest act of love today was a small gift of love I gave my older daughter. She had been away for the weekend at a teen retreat through our church. She loves this trip. Teens from all over the region get together for a weekend and communicate from their hearts and are surrounded in love and peace. They participate in outdoor activities, do a talent show and have heart to heart discussions in groups. She always comes home glowing.
Then the post rally low hits. She’s a teenager, so that could be very dramatic, not to mention that she was tired from the weekend. She was feeling low knowing that she would go to school the next day and not be surrounded by all that love, all that acceptance. I can see how that transition could be difficult. I empathized but also gave her a slightly different way to look at it.
We talked about intention. I told her that I have found intention to be a powerful thing. She had a choice, she could continue to focus on the feeling of the low and missing the warmth of rally and that would be ok. However, we also talked about the idea of changing her intention from the inevitability of the low to one of taking all the love she is feeling and bringing it with her to school tomorrow. Now, she doesn’t have to approach it the same way they did this weekend and go around hugging everyone in the hallways, but she could bring that love with her and simply be that love tomorrow at school. That love doesn’t have to disappear right? It could continue to be shared. I mean just think about if all the kids that were at that retreat went to their various schools tomorrow and just let that love quietly shine from them. Think of the ripples of love that would make all over the region. It seems to me that it doesn’t necessarily take a great, dramatic act of love to share love, but perhaps instead the greatest act of love is simply to be the presence of love.
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