"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these."
The Bible tells us that the greatest commandments have to do with love. 1st to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. 2nd to love your neighbor as yourself.
But can you love anyone if you don't really love yourself? I started thinking on this, what does it mean to love yourself? Certainly it does not relate to being selfish or self centered but perhaps to just respecting yourself and treating yourself as least as good as you treat others? I don't know about you but I treat myself worse than I would treat anyone else. I eat crap, I deprive myself of sleep, I force myself to go to a job I hate every day, I allow myself to be less than my best.
It's time to start learning how to love myself that I might love others as I should. This is going to be a big task.
I have cried rivers of tears in the past year. I have wondered if anything would ever be right again. I have questioned my life, my choices, my faith, my God...
And I heard this song a few weeks ago, and it made the tears start rolling again but for a different reason. I have cried a river that I thought would drown me but somehow I have come out on the other side - stronger, happier, at peace.
And those prayers - they are being answered slowly but surely. And I think maybe a thousand sleepless nights is exactly what it took to change the only thing that I could ever really hope to change - me.
I hope the song moves you as it has moved me.
Blessings... Laura Story
We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things
‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe
‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home,
It's not our home
‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
I have not written here in well over a month. For me this place is to pour out the things I cannot say elsewhere, to complain, to moan, to cry. Well lately things have been better. The spring is sort of here, it's still cold but the hours of daylight gets more each day and that helps me greatly. My husband has been making an effort and our relationship is on the mend. My job is picking up and while I still don't like the job it is a bit less soul sucking these days. So I haven't had much to say.
My husband planned a cruise for our anniversary in November. It's very exciting. :) We are taking a 7 day Bahama's Cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line out of NYC and will be on the boat for our 11th anniversary on 11/11/11.
In other news - not much is happening - looking forward to opening the pool and getting things moving along toward summer. Many things to do - spring cleaning - yard clean-up (a whole winter's worth of dog POO), flower bed clean-up. Before you know it I'll be mowing again and planting those flower beds.
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