Love is an action verb...

I have spent the last few days pondering those words. I was in a deep conversation with a good friend about relationships when she mentioned that love is an action verb. We were reminiscing about the past and past relationships, when she made this statement. Since that point, it has been on my mind as we get ready to enter in 2011. I am not a big resolution kind of person, although I have considered following Rosie's advice and doing a vision board. The vision board seems more me than making a bunch of resolutions that may or may not get followed through with during the year. But in my head I can see how the vision board and this phrase "love is an action verb" mold together for me.

For some reason the last month or so has been a reflection time for me, not just of this year but of the last several years. In reflecting I have realized that I had an love that I lost, due in part to not having action behind my words. I have put into action, on some levels, a love for myself by working through things that have been hard and to others may have seemed selfish, in order to get to a place where I can say I love myself. I put into action the love I wanted to have as a mother to a child and worked to get Isaiah. And now I put into action everyday my love for him to make sure he knows love is not simply a noun. Do I put enough action behind it where he is concerned...I hope so, but I think there is always room to improve.

I have loved myself enough to stop putting action behind the word with some people in my life and have let them go. I have been thankful for the part they played in my life, recognized the blessings they brought to me, and I hope I brought to them, realized that the parting is sometimes sweet, sometimes not and sometimes just slips away over time without either person really doing anything. I have also realized how little action I have put behind love with some people and hope that this year I can right the wrong I have done. That it is not enough to sign a card, email or FB post with "love ya" and hope they know what they mean to me.

"I love you" was a hard thing for me to say for a long time and now it has become to easy. This year I want to find the balance. I want it to be a bit harder to say, I want there to be deliberate action to back up the words....I want people in my life that I love to experience it, not just hear it. So to the people in my life that I love, those that are new in my life, those that have been around a while, and those that I have forgotten to nurture because I "assume" you know I love you, this year I hope to do better. I hope that at least in some small way you feel the "action" of my love on a fairly regular basis.

Here is what love has come to look like in my home...What does it look like in yours? Are your "I love you's" filled with action?