Fill Your Heart with Light and Love

This past weekend, I felt a darkness in me, as though I was inside a closet with the door shut. I noticed it. Thoughts about past mistakes, and current money pressures, flooded through my mind. As the days passed, I decided to talk to a trusted person about what was happening within me.

Yet, something unexpected happened. As I began to talk, ready to rattle off my list of things that were making me feel this aching in my heart, I paused. Did this familiar story need my attention, or was there something else?

In that moment, I realized that perhaps there was another story about my life, and about myself, that needed to be heard–that was wanting to be heard.

I paused. I let my heart speak, and out came a voice of tenderness and compassion towards myself. It was time for me to make a shift: to start looking at myself and my life from the inside out; and not always from the outside in. Life is not about a list of accomplishments. It is about growing in love.

Could I make this shift: from an external and conditional acceptance of myself and my life, to an internal and  unconditional love and acceptance of myself and my life?

This morning, when I read the gospel reading it was about living in the light and coming out of the darkness. I asked myself: could I live in the light of acceptance and gratitude for the life I have lived and am living?

Pause and reflect:

• How can we let resurrection come to life in our lives today?