Precious Gifts of Love
One-minute daily reflections on the meaning and miracles of Love.
by
C.J. Good
Smashwords Edition
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Published By:
C.J. Good on Smashwords
Copyright © 2010 by C.J. Good
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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This book is available in print at Amazon.com.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Natalie, Max and Andrew.
None of these words would have been written down without your loving encouragement and support. You are such a gift to me. Thank you.
We all need more love, for love is a magical, transforming power. When we let it into our hearts, our entire world shifts. Nothing else truly matters except the way we give and receive love. “Precious Gifts of Love” is an exploration into the meaning and miracles of love.
You can read it from cover to cover or after going through the book once, you may find yourself returning to various parts for study, reflection or practice.
To break through the confines of self-imposed obstacles to love’s freedom, to be more loving, to love more and feel content in every aspect of life, is the purpose of this book.
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Precious Gifts of Love
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Love and you shall be loved
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
January 1
Being genuinely loved by someone creates stability, while deeply loving someone generates courage.
January 2
The most painful things in the world are felt within the heart. Love is a form of resuscitation and is the most potent healing force in the world. Love has the power to bring light out of darkness. Love throws us on our knees as we give thanks in gratitude. Those who cannot be grateful cannot love.
January 3
Contemplation is similar to sitting beside a mountain stream, becoming the moving water. I read poetry, which resonates in my heart as a complete, delicate, quite perfect thing of beauty.
January 4
The many facets of love are as refreshing as a Spring breeze. Amazing and incandescent, love has a healing effect that goes to the very essence of our souls. A loving heart brings passion and meaning to the many guises to our everyday lives. Love is profound and practical when we gracefully contemplate it and open our hearts to love in our lives.
January 5
When we are loved for ourselves and in spite of ourselves, this brings great happiness. Life takes on another meaning when we are in love. All the pleasures of life remain, but we are born again, as love’s delirium reaches new heights.
January 6
Love can be seen in our eyes. Daring to look we see eyes full of life, child’s eyes, liquid eyes of youth, trembling eyes, protected by beautiful long lashes, intelligent eyes twinkling like solitary lights on winter evenings, glowing eyes full of fire, as if ready to pierce our hearts.
January 7
The only regret that had ever touched our hearts was the love we left by the wayside. We seize love as a monkey grabs a fruit, peeling off the bitter peel to savor the sweet fruit. But the love we gave away, was the only love we were able to keep.
January 8
Love endlessly delights; love charms. From the depths of our hearts, love gives us the pleasure of hearing ourselves praised. True love can grow more deep and tender by the hour. It replenishes our molecules, transforms the very DNA of our being. Love’s beauty, gifts and transforming power resides deep in our hearts. Nothing can soothe like the power of unconditional love.
January 9
Love in conversation imagines Souls exchanging noble thoughts of the future. If we want to be loved, we need to reveal who we are. We walk on earth but our head is in the clouds. There is joy in the passion we feel, as love brings out the best in us. True love is one that overlooks our defects and revels in our successes.
January 10
If you love someone enough, they will give up their secrets. If you love your animals enough, they will give up their secrets. Flowers, plants, lakes and ponds will eventually give up their secrets, if you love them enough. When you are in quiet meditation and communing with people, places or things they give up their secrets too – if you love them enough.
January 11
Love is your highest essence. A part of you remains, wherever you have loved.
January 12
Love encourages a remarkable level of understanding. Some people believe that holding on will give us strength – but it comes down to letting go. When we see things, it is not as they are, but as we are. Love is a mirror.
January 13
Real love does not interfere or demand. It delights in both worship and sympathy. To have that sweet weakness aiding me, to touch providence with my hand, able to take it into my arms, as the soul is present, is to be caressed. Love is looking with care, intense and fascinated. Beholding an object in thought in its absence, to hear it come, go, enjoy its attributes, without judgments, totally accepting it, is love.
January 14
Love has ever delighted and perplexed, inspired and confounded. We want to visit love from every imaginable angle. How this celebrated and mysterious emotion has been and ever will be, is the one enduring obsession of humankind.
January 15
Love is a promise that is never broken, a fortune you will never be able to spend, a seed that grows anywhere, a light that never fades. Love is the creator of our greatest memories and the foundation for our fondest dreams. Love is only understood by those who love.
January 16
It is sometimes hard to remember we need to love those who are most important, including ourselves, and to not forget that the greatest gift we can possibly give is love.
January 17
Love is like giving a daily hug, and who doesn’t need a hug each and every day?
January 18
When we are being the love of our own life, when we stop seeking it outside, then we are on the easiest road to love. An act of loving ourselves like nothing else is the best energy investment. If we really want “big love” in our lives, we must love ourselves first. This is the ultimate reward of love.
January 19
Love resides within the grand paintings drawn by the greatest geniuses of Europe. It resonates in the harmonies of Mozart and vibrates in operatic strains of Verdi. Love can by a tyrant. It will mock both men and things, like a glorified diplomat.
January 20
While we sleep, unbeknownst to us, love plants secret and irresistible seeds of ideas while our awareness is closed to the physicality of the outside world. Awakening we find ourselves in a state of perception very different from when we went to sleep. As images rise up before us love defines our path and pardons our transgressions. We confess that the purpose of our existence is to give and receive love.
January 21
One hour of cherished love will make us forget entire months of impatience and harshness. In love, we discover new treasures of tenderness and devotion. It is the deepest of all passions we will ever know. It inspires us to write poetry. Even in old age, love holds us erect as when we were young and brings lightness to our steps.
January 22
Do not be miserly with your love; love thrives on a profusion of giving. It stirs fibers within that could never be moved by any other emotion. Love introduces quavering tenderness – ancient impressions of wonderment at the awareness that some special Power is presiding over our lives.
January 23
We manage to divert ourselves with distractions but love is the greatest instinct, as there is no reasoning.
January 24
When we look back on life, it would be difficult to find an instance in which love’s goodness had failed us. We recognize that we felt truly alive when we conducted ourselves in the spirit of love. Be brave – allow love to cling tightly to your heart.
January 25
Love generates a heart touched by kindness. We are profoundly moved, by gazing at another person in admiration. Love chats gaily around a table of friends, alighted by candles and surrounded by admirable works of art. Love enables intense passionate expression and unrestrained beauty. It has the power to warm and rekindle the cold heart of age. Love starts us on a new existence with each dawn.
January 26
Despite the heat of the day, never underestimate the intensity of love. It is here, encased in the depths of our hearts, struggling to break free. All it takes is a pause and the door will open when love decides to manifest itself.
January 27
When we give love with all of our hearts, we automatically begin making new choices. Because love makes the ride of life worthwhile, we find that the conditions of our lives – including our health, relationships and work situations – are all changing for the better. Like the ebb and flow of ocean tides, Love’s continuous power unfolds before our eyes.
January 28
Call attention to the pathways, that allow love to enter your life. The type of love we are talking about is human love. The kind of love, that one would share with friends, coworkers and even the person behind the grocery counter. Love is the highest level of understanding.
January 29
Our greatest distress is caused by the absence of those we love. The heart sees with an invisible eye as thoughts scarcely pass through our minds. Love’s intelligent voice makes us believe that we are understood, giving us the courage to endure.
January 30
Three words “I Love You” can enlighten us more than twenty years of human experience. Through love we suffer and through love we rejoice. Allow yourself to deeply feel love in this moment. Feel the love, even at the level of your molecules, for the talents you possess, and your potential to love is utterly magical and special.
January 31
How many times do we avoid newfound love, because we were brokenhearted? Do we display the awful look that a person casts upon an unwanted stranger? Do we recoil in displeasure, not willing to look our friend in the eye? Love gently sows points full of fire, life and intelligence. We raise up like a noble monument of white marble, regaining our energy to love again.
February 1
When supreme love is permitted to move through me, my soul arrives at a restful place. It is a peaceful feeling, likened only to the calmness of a secluded, labyrinthine waterway. Nothing can rearrange my growing serenity or this quiet.
February 2
Love is the only regret that will ever touch our hearts, especially in moments of physical depression. Love knows admirably how to yield itself to another’s influence. Love is clever enough to make one tremble like a youth. Love should not be hidden away. It should be shared with friends, family and acquaintances – supply their lives with joy and enchantment, bring passion to their hearts – and they too will be made contented by your love.
February 3
Love is a dream from which we need never emerge. Love is a game for which we must pay meticulous attention, because it has no rules. The only way to experience love is by loving. Once we have given love, we can never claim it back.
February 4
In our imagination we comprehend the sense of mystery of love’s sudden presence. We know we will never be left behind if we love ourselves. We turn immediately towards becoming a living expression of love. Love is on our faces, in our wide-open eyes, within our smiles, and on resonate voices. Our tones are deep and soothing, lulling with lovely vibrations.
February 5
Love gives us the fortitude to lighten the sorrow of others and ourselves. It soothes us like sweet cream and warms us into a gazing calm which makes us feel a sense of awe in the presence of something magical. Love helps us recognize the quiet grandeur or beauty of life. We notice the earth, the sky, a breathing, functioning planet, full-flowering gardens, and bending branches over silent walkways.
February 6
There is nothing that I want more than to find the love that exists in every moment.
February 7
When we discover we are loved, what a surprise. Our uneasiness has left us. Nothing on this earth can possibly emulate the mysterious effect of love. We feel a strange mixture of feelings; a collision of joy and anguish, and the pulse of our heart, beats with covetous yearning.
February 8
Trembling with emotions perplexing even to us, love brings something from the unknown to dawn on our lives. Thoughts and feelings become intermingled and even if we try to articulate them, we can only say it is befuddlement. Love’s first kiss is a secret conveyed to the heart instead of the ear.
February 9
Love will provide the strength to bear life’s losses.
February 10
Shuddering in this joy, laughter, song, beauty, and life personified, swayed by a thousand thoughts in many different directions, nothing can compare to the pleasure of love’s splendor.
February 11
Whether we give love or receive love, it is the greatest gift of all. Love is as delicate as a butterfly’s wing.
February 12
Loves asks us to seize upon this gift that is worthless unless given freely. Its sophistication creates a kind of moral freedom that we would never be entitled to if left to our own devices.
February 13
Love given through pity is not truly love. Thrust it away and find another vision where thoughts can be present within you. In far-off scenes try to find love’s path through that grey blinding fog where lions fear to hunt.
February 14
Loves touch and gentle care can be showered upon us so tenderly, but can also cause us to shed bitter tears. We redouble our caresses and increase our affections because the greatest waste one can leave behind is love withheld. Love alone costs us nothing – unlike the accoutrements that escort it.
February 15
The resonant note of a flute is love in search of a listener. Love shows us a glimpse into eternity.
February 16
Love is the key to the gate that will take us on the most incredible journey to the completion of our dreams and desires. Love teaches us how to find the feelings we would have if our goals were met. A life lived in love is one worth living.
February 17
Our good qualities are under loves protection. Love uplifts a relationship from monotonous weariness to exceptional brilliancy. Love shudders at gentle, sweet voices, which penetrate the innermost recesses of our hearts. We feel our hearts dilate and throb as we open our arms in warm embrace.
February 18
Love directs our course, gives us courage to endure and sustains us in our struggle with tyranny. Only love can triumph over suffering, for love itself is the reward. Loves makes us forget all that we do not wish to remember.
February 19
When in love, we cannot help but tremble at the sight of our beloved. This splendor, joy, laughter, song, and beauty is life personified. Love can sway us with a thousand thoughts, but experience counts for nothing. There is never a happy ending for real love, for love will never end.
February 20
Love revives old friendships that were impossible to repair; and yet we have dreamy feelings that the greatest hijacker of our happiness was the empty void created by lack of love.
February 21
As we search in life for perfect love, we are set free from confinement. Isolation taught us to worship in close-locked solitude, hidden away from daylight. In isolation, we were oblivious to the song of birds and other winged things. Love turns us into a creature of requests and growing desires. We begin to seek out and enjoy sunshine, sounds, and movement. Love brings us into a state of trust. There is fluttering kindness in our eyes when we look at other people.
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C.J. Good writes on topics ranging from spirituality, inspiration, and growth to health issues, business and relationships. Her purpose is to write quality books that will make a difference in readers’ lives. How we can feel better about ourselves and how we can interact with one another is the basis for ultimate contentment. Values such as integrity, compassion, love, understanding and peace are inherent in the writings of C.J. Good.
For further information, please visit:
www.sustainablecontentment.com
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