Love for Those Closest to Us (KB)

Many times, our greatest tests occur within the relationships we have with the people who are closest to us. Let me give you an example. Several couples get together, all of them with children who are running around and playing. While one of the fathers is talking, however, his kid is starts acting like a bandit: tearing around and screaming. The father looks at the child and says, “Stop that right now! Don’t you see we are in the middle of a conversation? Don’t act that way!“ Note that he didn’t excuse himself and take the child into another room and lovingly tell him, ”That’s not the way to behave in front of people.” You see, the scolding wasn’t about helping the child to become a better person; it was about making the father look better in the eyes of those around him. I’m not giving this as an example of how to or how not to parent. Where and how the scolding took place is not the point of the story. The point is that we always need to be on the lookout for the times that our mind goes into darkness mode, the times that we fail to think about the space and feelings of those we love and cherish the most, and we say, “Don’t bother me now. I’m into my own ego.”