I got to hold a baby again recently. I had taken my son to the doctor's office for a checkup and noticed a tired grandmother trying to fill out the office's paperwork and comfort her sick grandchild at the same time.  I offered to help and gently rocked the infant back to sleep. With all of my children teenagers now it had been a while since I had held someone quite so small in my arms. As I looked at his sweet, innocent face I couldn't help but to think of what life held in store for him. I knew that it would be a mixture of both joy and fear, laughter and tears, growth and struggle, learning and difficulty, and love and pain. I said a silent prayer that he would learn quickly to choose the good things and not dwell on the bad. I also prayed that he would always feel loved in his life. I knew that if he felt loved then he would also choose love and share love with so many others as well.

I then said this prayer for the rest of us too. We may be fathers, mothers, and grandparents now, but inside of each of us there is still a child needing love and wanting to be loved. Thankfully, we have a parent who loves us with a love that is both unending and unconditional. We are all Children of God and we are always held in His loving arms as we go through this life. Even if we haven't always felt loved by the people in our lives we can be assured that His love will always be there for us.

May we all feel loved in this life. May we all feel God's love for us from our first breath until our last sigh. May we feel loved through all the joy we experience and through all the pain we must face as well. May we use that love to choose the good things in life and not dwell on the bad. May we use that love to become more loving ourselves every single day of our lives. May we use that love and share our love to help others feel loved as well.