Love, laugh and live? A pal wrote this to me recently and I didn't take too much notice of it, until I was asked to put a title on this blog!

I have wanted to blog for a while now and here I am. Now what do I write about?!?

Let me take the title and break it up into sections, I'll start with love.....................

What a topic! I have been blessed in my life in that I love many people. I believe my ability to love is a gift God gave to me. I am grateful for his gift. It is a gift I freely accepted, not that I have ever given it much thought, I mean about freely accepting God's gift. But I must have just accepted it at some point in my early life.

Love is a gift and I know that I am loved by many too. A few years ago, I read a religious article that brought tears to my eyes. I think at the time, I was probably not feeling very loved and more importantly wasn't in a very self loving place! Our Lady was said to have said to the children in an apparition in Medugorja, "If you knew how much you are loved, you would weep with joy". Think about this and allow it to sink into your soul, I did and it blew me away. Today it still has the same affect on me. My heart and soul climb and jump within me in joy, because I know I am loved so much and if I truly realised this, I would weep with joy.

My deepest desire is to be loved unconditionally. Therefore my responsibility is to love me unconditionally. I am learning to do this. I don't find it an easy road, I am quite challenged by it, but it is a road I know I need to be on. I want to be on!

I love both my adult children unconditionally, I am grateful to them for that experience. Had I not had them, I may not have known what it is like to love an other human being unconditionally. I realised quite recently, that I love my parents unconditionally also. It is in loving them unconditionally that I know how I can love me unconditionally. I also know in the core of my being that God loves me unconditionally. I find this hugely comforting. And what's more, you too are loved unconditionally, God's love is not exclusive to me, he loves us all.

I often say that if we looked at and spoke to each other in the same way we do to our babies and young children, what a difference it would make in the world we live in. Because when we interact with a small child, our eyes light up and through our eyes, the child sees it's own uniqueness, we mirror it to them. Now imagine if we did that with each other, what a difference that would make in the souls and hearts of all of us. I believe if we all did this, all our negative behaviours would fade away, because I think we would see and feel our own wholeness. I think it is the loss of our wholeness as human being that lends us to behave badly.

I often wonder if what the Catholic Church terms "Original Sin" is in fact the loss of our individual uniqueness. It makes sense to me, because on some deep level within all of us, we keep trying to get back to that place of wholeness within ourselves. You know, we all can get back there. All I need to do is to accept that God loves me and you unconditionally and my responsibility is to love myself unconditionally and if I can do that, I will love all who cross my path as I journey through life, unconditionally.

I think the 10 commandments are good rules to live by in life, but I think one of them is often forgotten. "Love God and your neighbour AS yourself", isn't the clue here that we are all connected? Isn't it true that all human beings deepest desire is to be love unconditionally? And that we all need and want to be seen for our individual uniqueness and wholeness?

I offer this to you as an opportunity to reflect on how much you love yourself unconditionally. And take comfort from the fact that you are already love unconditionally.

Sin é for now.......