What is not love is a call for love...

Got Waders? We are going in deep again. 

Yesterday was a rough day, my kids didn't really know how to be at their grandma's viewing. And it made me start thinking. Having a lot of free Sunday time now, lends to too much thinking.

Anywhoo...my ex, who left approximately 2.5 years ago has taken the brunt of the blog post title.  What is not love, is a call for love.  Occasionally my kids react, push, and are just plain mean to him at times.  And really from their perspective, how can  you blame them?  But that's just it, it's from their perspective.  But as I thought about this yesterday, really they are not not loving him, they are just calling for his love.  They were hurt and damaged and are calling out to him asking for him to love them more, understand them, and explain to them.  They want his love, not to reject his love.

Are you still with me? Or did I lose you at "yesterday was a rough day" with boredom?

In the case of me, one of the reasons I am going through the loss of a friendship is because I was mean and disrespected my best friend.  I exploited her perceived weaknesses to her to make her feel guilty, I was reacting out of fear.  For instance, I felt as though she was abandoning me and so I pointed out something she did wrong, or how she was negligent in listening, or how she didn't care.  What I learned was that I wasn't loving her, I was calling for love.  When this light bulb goes off for you, it will change everything as it did for me. 

I cannot go back and undo the hurt between my kid's dad or my friend and I, but I can take this lesson and learn from it.  If we can start asking for the love we want or need instead of demanding it through actions, we may be free from the fear and have all the love we want.

Take Gargamel. Yep that smurf character we all love to hate. He is the sworn enemy to the smurfs. He is an evil wizard who does many evil things with limited power. He works out of fear. He is obsessed with the smurfs and goes between trying to eat them or destroy their village. 

But what Gargamel was really doing was asking for love. Sometimes the behavior we abhor or detestl in others or ourselves is just a call for love. Because what is not love is a call for love. Having compassion and forgiveness for people who act like this, is what will heal the world.