I read an article on love.  So, this precedes my Part 2 of Cancer- Crisis and Opportunity, a blog that is evolving as I continue my journey.

Yet, I am coming to realize that many life threatening diseases are exactly about the LOVE THAT IS MISSING IN OUR LIVES.

There has been so much prose, poetry, music, films, etc. about love, yet what it really is seems to elude us. It certainly eluded me until cancer came into my life again.

I am finding that love has many faces and many names.

There is romantic love between partners – something that the media portrays in ad nauseum.

There is love for family and friends, something that I am so grateful for as I continue my journey of healing.

There is love that comes in the form of gratitude and thankfulness, as I am so grateful to be alive and being able to be surrounded by the love of my children and friends, those near and afar.

But, the love that we know little about is the love for self, one that is not selfish in wanting only what “I” want, but one that opens the heart to having compassion for the self as well as for others. Since the illness started, I am learning to appreciate my body. It has been sickly and weak since childhood, and yet I am coming to understand how hard it’s worked all these almost 69 years to keep me alive.

Of course, in my mind, the love of self and others cannot be separated from God’s love, that which I have felt during times of healing and revelations. It stops time for me, and my past, present and future come into one, and there is NO separation in the whole of the Universe.

Putting aside nationalities, race, religion, politics, gender, we are the same. Anyone who cuts his/her finger will bleed. We all get hungry. In my travels to Asia last year, I learned that we all want to be happy, to have our family and loved ones around us, to offer a better life for our children than what we’ve had to endure.

I hope that you not only enjoy the article, but come to understand what love is all about. especially for you, and why it is so primal to healing, whatever it is you need to heal in your life.

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/57-57/10077-acts-of-love.