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Love is best when shared.

One of the reasons this challenge was created was to battle the negative side of the whole Valentine’s Day focus on relationships.  It is meant to celebrate love. Period.  That’s why today’s topic is on sharing your love with others.  It’s easy to allow loneliness to become your focus, and to get stuck there, isolated.  For today let’s shift that paradigm outward. 

Valentine, there is a whole world out there that needs your love, all year long.

How about committing to sharing your heart each day for the rest of February?  Here’s an idea that is quick, easy, and can cost you nothing… but may be priceless.  Each day why not gift a “love note” to someone – someone special in your life, family, friends?  Maybe it’s a note in your child’s backpack or lunch box.  How about sending a real, honest-to-goodness snail mail card to a parent or friend just to say “Hi, I’m thinking of you and appreciate you!”.  A quick email of appreciation to a colleague or employee might be just the thing to perk up their day.  Even a text will do nicely.  I have a special place where I keep cards and notes I have received over the years and have taken screen shots of kind words on Facebook posts.  When I’m down I will read over them, and it always helps me feel better. I cherish the fact that someone cared enough to reach out to me in this way. 

This world can be a hard, cold place.  Just a word of encouragement or good tidings from you could impact the receiver more than you might ever realize.  My grandmother and mother have created a legacy of kind words to any and everyone.  Nana (now in heaven) and Mom have been known to go up to ANYBODY just to tell them how lovely their hair is done, or how nice their outfit looks on them, etc.  Can I tell you I have seen women absolutely beam with delight after one of these “words of affirmation/love” encounters with Nana and Mom!  A few syllables from a total stranger… a moment in time… a memory that lasts a lifetime.

Just as negative words can create pain and lifetime wounds, your simple word of kindness, encouragement and love gently planted as a seed of caring may forever blossom in the recipient’s heart.  You just don’t know what it might mean to someone else. 

Blessings,

Linda