Today I am grateful for being loved.  Not just me, personally, being loved, although I am most certainly grateful for that.  i am grateful for Doug and the kids and my big boisterous family  and all my friends and the love they all give me everyday.  But what I am really grateful for is witnessing the difference being loved makes in the lives of people.   Today I witnessed a very sick woman being tenderly cared for by a neighbor.  The look of affection and concern in the neighbor’s eyes and the look of love and gratitude in the eyes of the sick woman were truly something to behold.  I witnessed a daughter wrap her arms around her elderly mother and keep her warm in the cold as they walked to the car from the supermarket.  The smile on the mother’s face was worth a thousand words.  I heard numerous people call and check on loved ones to make sure they were ok in this weather.  I watched parents greet their children as they jumped off the school bus and into their parents’ arms. I got a text today from someone who loves me just saying “Hey — how is your day going?”

I often think that love is a lot like prayer — they are both very simple things that anyone can do no matter what their educational background, economic situation or physical capability.  But we have made them both  so very complicated. We think we have to read all kinds of books and go on retreats and be a theological expert to know how to pray.  But really, prayer is just speaking honestly from your heart to God. The same is true of love.  We complicate it, and psychoanalyze it. And over think it.  But really, it’s just about considering the welfare and happiness of another to be as important as your own.  I witnessed these small acts of kindness all day and it dawned on me — THIS is what makes the world go round.  This is what heals broken hearts.  This is what helps someone face the difficulties ahead.   Love changes everything.  We need it like we need air and water.

I was blessed on this very cold day by the examples of warmth and love that were all around me.  And for that, I am so very grateful.  And a little changed as well!