Relationships Pt. 2

What is love anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway. Oh Howard Jones. Your lyrics... so insightful.

Love is... a best friend. Someone you can see yourself growing old with and never getting sick of. Okay, you might get sick of dirty laundry on the floor. You might get sick of dishes stacked in the kitchen. What is that stuff anyway? Every day life that just needs a little kindness and organization. You don't love someone because they are clean. You don't love someone because they have it together in the financial department. You love someone because you like to be with them. To stay up all night and talk or play games. Love is seeing that someone has flaws, and loving them beyond the flaws. Love is allowing someone see YOUR flaws and trusting that they will love you in spite of them.

Love is building a solid friendship. If you are with someone right now... I'm hoping your relationship started out as friendship. Laughter, fun, talking about anything and everything. Waking up with them as your first thought in the morning and going to sleep with them on your mind at night.

Let's really look at friendship. Friendship is when you desire what is best for the other person. It shares mutual compassion and understanding. Friendship holds honesty high on it's list of values. Friendship involves mutual trust without the fear of being judged. It is a relationship with equal give and take.

C.S Lewis in "The Four Loves" wrote - "To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue."

Is your relationship built on solid friendship? A friendship that can weather all storms in life? Are you judging your partner on what he or she does for you? What if you tweak your way of looking at your relationship and treat your partner as your best friend? What if you start to think about what you can do for your partner, rather than what they can do for you?

Thanks for reading! ~ Dawn

Relationships Part 1

As promised, I'm back again with another post on a topic that is so close to my heart - relationships. The things I have to say are not new concepts. You'll find no instant fix or magic potion here. Just some ideas that are really back to basics. It seems to me that the first thing I should write about is "What is Love?" I'll branch out from there.

Looking up "love" on dictionary.com and scanning through the definitions, the one that popped out at me was under noun: "the affectionate concern for the well-being of others."

Going further, I looked up the word Love on wikipedia.org to see what had been posted there. "In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion and affection."

On a higher authority, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13 (The Message version)
"Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies."

There are other definitions out there of "love"... but this love is what our relationships should be based on. Whether your relationship is between you and a friend, a spouse, a child, a partner.... Love is, simply put, an action. I've learned this over the years, sometimes from tough lessons. I think I'll let the definitions sink in a bit and hope you'll read them over more than once.

More tomorrow! Thanks for reading! ~ Dawnee

I haven't spent time blogging lately for a few reasons. First of all, I have been spending my time with grand kids and learning to paint. So far, I've decided that my talent in watercolour painting is lacking and I long to sit and just draw. I don't know why I haven't just gone back to drawing all the time instead of pushing myself to have a talent that just isn't there.
The main reason I haven't blogged lately is because I've had one thing on my heart and to write about it may cause some of my readers to think that I have them in mind while writing. Truly, the topic is something that has been on my heart for years. Especially with my kids growing into adulthood. Relationships. That is the topic I want to focus on for a bit. I'll still throw in a bit of artwork, failure or success... but my heart longs to heal and encourage others in their relationships. More directly, marriages and significant others.
I hope that as I write about this excitement in my heart to help strengthen others will be something that you are willing to come back and read. Especially each and every one of my kids. Because they have survived the breakdown of my marriage to their father and the subsequent issues that arise because of that breakdown... my desire is to help keep each one of them as well as my friends and family from going through the same thing.
Before I get down to it, I want to state that my writing will have no bashing of my ex husband. We share equal responsibility in our breakup. He is someone I will love and be close to for the rest of our lives. I'm extremely lucky that we have worked through our issues and have remained, even become better friends than we ever were.
My next blog will be written and added tomorrow. I have a few things to touch on and I don't want to put everything into one blog. Blogs are supposed to be quick and easy to read. I shan't allow my passion overtake too much of your time in one sitting, I promise. But please... if you have a heart to listen, and would like to respond to the blog with your own experiences, I'd love to share in a give and take manner. For now.... blessings and thanks for reading! ~ Dawnee