With All My Love

The month of December is typically marked as remembering the true miracle that is unconditional human love.

It is an irrational and counter-productive response to our primal desire to be self-serving.  It makes no logical sense if we are just creatures that act strictly on animalistic, survival-of-the-fittest instinct.  After all, a mother zebra wouldn’t throw herself into the mouth of a lion in order to save her baby.  A lion wouldn’t go to marriage counseling to find out why his mate was unhappy.  A shark wouldn’t donate his evening’s meal to help out a friend in need.  A salmon wouldn’t stay up half the night worrying about his son’s absence in the river.

I have, of course, written on the subject of love before (after all, as a Romance writer this is my favorite subject!).  But I want to remind all of us that we as human beings were made with a specific and thoughtful purpose to love and be loved.

We are not always good about this.  In fact, most of the time we’re lousy participants.  Yet, every time we dare to extend ourselves to someone else and offer this gift of selflessness and grace, it completes and satisfies us in an aurora of ways that no elephant, no swordfish, no redwood tree has the ability to comprehend.

Remember that love is the core essence of who we are as wondrous humans.  We are the only beings on earth who not only comprehend what it is, but experience it to its fullness.

So the next time a cynical professor claims you’re nothing more than an evolved amoeba, or a frustrating boss claims you’re a worthless and replaceable cog in the industrial machine, remember that you are special, and you are beautiful, and you are even more unique and miraculous than a brilliant, glittering snowflake on a cold winter morning.

Most of all, you are loved and cherished, if by no one else but the One who purposefully and wondrously formed you in your mother’s womb.

And that, my dear brother or sister, is a gift to be ridiculously joyful over, one no one can rationalize or take away from you.  Ever.

With all my love,

ADDISON CARMICHAEL