The Power of Love is Healing

"May you feed a hungry world through me; I then shall live as one who's been forgiven."

This lyric is from Gloria Gaither's anthem I Then Shall Live. If you are in a church choir you need to add this to your repertoire. A literalist would read this and say we need to feed people but I think Gloria had a much grander vision.

We live in a world where people line up at stores, overnight, in all kinds of weather, just to acquire the latest smart phone as soon as it is available. The crazy aspect of this is they already own a smart phone. Our need to be connected is now only satiated by speed. Can you get my text at the speed of light? 4G....5G....20G. At this pace the next quantum step will be to receive my text before I even think it! Yet we are more alone than ever before. We hunger to be connected.

In North America alcohol and drug abuse has increased faster than population growth. Obesity is at epidemic levels. All of these abuses occur when we are trying to fill our lives with something we do not have. For some reason we think will satisfy our perceived lack with comfort. We are hungry for meaning.

Divorce used to happen to someone you knew, now it happens to family members. Go to my website and watch the divorce counter click over. There are many reasons for divorce but if you looked at the common element it would be I am not happy with what I am getting out of my marriage. We hunger for love.

If you add all of the time we spend watching sports or TV dramas or so called reality shows or searching the web, reading anything other than books of learning, any time we spend observing rather than doing, we are living our lives through others.  We hunger for our identity.

I will leave the religious implications of the solution to others. For me the simple answer to all of this hunger is love. Love is an inside job. You need to love yourself before you can love others. We wrongly look for our connection, our meaning, our identity, our love from others. The simple truth is only when we love on purpose, when we love with intention, when we give ourselves away, when we love unconditionally, we find connection and meaning and identity and love.

Why would you wait one more second to make the behavior change you need to make to enhance your life and that of every one around you?  When you love on purpose, the person you will heal the most will be yourself.