...and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another." -George McDonald
This is profound. When it's a Friday night and I don't have a date and am definitely not dating anyone, it's easy to forget this, and feel a little grumpy about not being loved. It's easy to sigh and reminisce about past times when it seemed like I was the most important person to someone. That was a pretty neat feeling.
Sometimes it feels like there isn't as much purpose to life when you're single. You don't have someone depending on you to be there for them. You don't have someone that you can go to and tell everything to, and you know that they are genuinely interested in knowing (although, I share an awful lot with Robyn). It's easy to feel like you could disappear, to the library or to your bedroom, and no one would care anymore.
But then, just before the pity party starts, and the nerve impulse from my brain to my legs (to get up for some ice cream and plop on the couch and put in a chick flick, which would be living vicariously through some fake story where the music swells in all the right places and everyone is always perfect and attractive) has a chance to finish it's course, I start to think about things. As wonderful as it is to feel loved, what I really miss the most is the feeling I get when I love someone else. In that situation, I like who I am: happy and excited and ready to do whatever I can to show that person how I feel about them. Ready to find out how they need to be cared for, even if it's not how I would normally show it. I admit it: this is #1 of my Top 15. :D
I believe that one of our purposes on this earth is to come close to the souls of others. Why else are we born into families and have friends and so many opportunities to interact with other people every day? We can still feel joy from serving and loving and getting to know other people. It doesn't have to be such a concentrated, romantic love. Love in itself is very powerful.
Each of us have so much to offer the world and each other. Each of us have so much potential to love. And each of us can do so much good with this love.
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6 comments:
Relationships can be powerful in so many ways. I love people and learning from them! And Diane, I love you too.
(I'm pretty sure I have some $ to give you for those potatoes.)
Thanks for sending your love this way. You have so much to give. Love you!!!!
How true. I remember first hearing "Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace" and being touched by its message: "Grant that I may not so much seek to be...loved as to love...for it is in giving that we receive..."
And I love you. Mucho.
Here I am, about to make comments that will put hate mail in my Inbox, but here it goes anyway.
First, not dating someone doesn't mean that you aren't loved because--let's face it--Diane is loved. Dating someone still doesn't mean that you are loved. Love is not evidenced in a commitment or in token gestures or physical signs. Evidence of love goes much deeper than that.
Second, purpose in life as a single, unattached person is not so different from purpose in life in a healthy relationship. Having someone to share life with is not the same has having purpose in that life.
Is it possible to "like who I am" and be "happy and excited" without having someone else committed to me? I think the healthiest relationships come from people who know how to be like this even when they're standing all alone.
Wow. Shut down. :)
Diane! I didn't know you had a blog until you mentioned something about it on facebook and then I decided to try and guess what it was since you weren't online to ask. Guess what. This is crazy. I guessed right on the first try! Yay!
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