Inside out

This week at church the sermon was on "seeing" people and loving people from the inside out. I started thinking about all the ways that I choose on a daily basis not to see people and to ignore some of the things that I do see. Its hard to love people from the inside out. I often get annoyed with peoples outward behavior and I don't want to think about what is on the inside that might be causing them to act this way. I don't think about the hurts they may be experiencing or have experienced in the past. I don't try to "see" past the outside and look deeper to the heart of the matter. Sometimes I do see people in need but I think about the emotional and physical investment and decide it would be too much of a sacrifice on my part and so I look the other way. I hear about starvation in other countries and human trafficking and abuse and I think to myself "I hate it that this is happening but what can I do about it?" So I do nothing about it. Sometimes the people that are the hardest to love are the ones that need it the most. I have people in my life that need me to love them from the inside out. They need me to look past the exterior and look inside first. They need me to see a life of hurt, a life of insecurity, a life of pain, a life that matters. I CAN make a difference if I give my time, my heart, my love, myself. I just learned of a co-worker of mine that lost her husband to cancer. They have small children and he was young. I started thinking about life and how quickly it can end. I really want my time on earth to matter. No one will remember how much money I made or what house I lived in or the kind of clothes I wore. They will remember the time I spent with them, the love I gave them, the difference I made in their life. The small things won't matter in the end and all the things that annoy me now will seem silly then. I don't want to be annoyed with people or indifferent to who they really are on the inside. Everyone in my life matters to me and I want them to know it. I want Kenneth to know how much I appreciate the time he spends with the kids and how he has shown me to enjoy my time with the kids and not rush it. He will often say to me "stop cleaning or stop working and go outside and enjoy the kids. Play with them and see how happy it makes them". He is right. I always have a to-do list and the list is never done. I often skip playing with the kids so I can get my list done. He knows how to play with them. He pretends with them, listens to them, wrestles them, plays dress up, dinosaur, whatever they want he plays along. I think about the silly things that we argue about and I know that those things don't matter. I know if Kenneth was dying that nothing would matter. I would want him to know that I love him and that I don't want to live my life without him. We have had our struggles and we still do but I want him in my life. I want my kids to know that I think of them all the time and try to love them the best that I know how. I want them to know that I believe in them and that I love them with my whole heart. I don't want to yell at them or ignore them or push them aside for my to-do list. Sometimes (ok a lot of times) we have hard days where the kids seem to fight all day and one of them is whining all day and the other is disobeying and the day seems to drag on forever. I start counting the hours until bedtime. Once I tuck them in and say goodnight I think about how much I love them and how sad I would be if anything ever happened to them. I need to stop wishing those times away. I hope I will open my eyes and start "seeing" people better and start loving people more. If you are reading this please know that I care about you and that you matter to me. Love ya, Loree P.S. I found this picture of Hannah and she is around the same age as Hudson is now. Wow!! The time has flown by!!