A Song of My Own

LOVE. This is such a well-discussed topic. How does one approach it differently than the world? The only way to do so is to see life a different way than the world. With loving comes risks when we expect there to be an exchange or reciprocity of emotions, or actions. So then the question becomes, who’s loving you and how well are you loving others? Perhaps, therein lies the problem. Your focus is on just that. How is that working for you? It has its ups and downs. Would you like to experience a consistent flow of love that doesn’t change with situations and time? There is a way to achieve this. Let’s dare to do something revolutionary.  Let’s have a vision of love and maintain that focus daily. At the end of each day there is only love and it all comes back to love. Have you ever tried to just be an expression of love itself? Now is the time for each of us to Live Our Vision Everyday. If you choose to take this road, it will be a journey of a lifetime that keeps you in a perpetual state of peace and happiness protected from the cares of the world. There is safety here. There is serenity here.  God dwells here. It is the center of His perfect will for us. Here are my top seven proven ways to rest in God and live LOVE daily:

1. Trust God daily.  As simple as this sounds, so many of us struggle with this everyday.  If everything were great all the time and you had everything in front of you that you ever wanted to have, would there be a need for faith or to even believe for anything? Each and every test, and each and every trial we go through blazes a concentrated trail back to love, which is God, according to I John 4:8 and faith worketh by love. This is truly why God works all things together for the good of those who love Him. Therefore, we must learn to relax in Him and live a focused life of love in faith while doing the very things we enjoy the most.  We must trust that God’s will for us is greater than anything we could truly ever ask or think for ourselves.

2. Forgive yourself and others daily.  In order to truly live, one must learn how to perpetually forgive.  This does not mean for anyone to let someone take advantage of them or run all over them. This means for everyone to be true to themselves enough to understand that until you have forgiven others your growth and love is blocked. Never give anyone that much power over your life. Free your mind so you life will follow.  Let go of any resentment, bitterness, hatred, and any negative energy associated with anyone who has hurt, disappointed, misused, abused, or refused you. Let God restore you to wholeness. Go inward, clean house, and let the sunshine in! Love is waiting for you on the other side!

3. Walk your truth in love daily. As the old saying goes, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” The same applies for your walk in truth. It isn’t what walk you have, but the way in which you walk it. Simply stated, learn how to speak your truth without being afraid of the outcome while still respecting others. If your “truth” brings negative energy, was that really a productive way to express it? What did you really accomplish? That you can speak your mind whenever you want and you don’t care what others think? Anybody can do that. Children who don’t know any better do that all the time. Try walking in your truth in such a positive way that it brings awareness and shows people how to better treat you. Isn’t that what you ultimately want anyway? At the end of each day, LOVE always wins and truly covers a multitude of sins.

4. Expect the great so it can come to you daily. Quite often, many events in our lives become playbacks of self-fulling prophecy. Yes, our perception is our reality. Knowing this: Since our thought life is our life that we live daily, why not turn the tables of your life and just. stay. positive. daily. Expect great things every day and attract more of what you want. Stop focusing on what you don’t want to experience, and focus on what you want for yourself and your family.  Live Habakkuk 2:2. Write the vision down. Speak the vision to those you trust. Live the vision until the vision is your reality. Live LOVE daily.

5. Express gratitude daily. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. When was the last time you took time out to just say thank you for the little things? When was the last time you did an inventory of the things you are thankful for? It’s hard to focus on the problem when you are already thanking God in advance for the solution. After all, every single problem has a solution. This is why nothing is impossible for God. The answers are all inside you where He dwells. When you view life in the eyes of gratitude, peace comes so you can actually think about the solution that has already been there waiting to be accessed. Shift your focus. Be thankful. Practice it until it becomes a permanent part of your psyche. When you are thankful, love surrounds, protects and abounds.

6. Freely express (positive) energy and love daily.Do bad things happen to good people? Sure they do. You cannot control what people do but you can control your reaction to anyone in any situation.  Philippians 4:8 states: Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. When this verse permeates within your spirit, this is all that can come out of you in any situation. It doesn’t make you weak. In fact, it makes you so much stronger than most because it takes more self-control and strength to freely express positive energy and love daily than to be trapped in a bottle of a myriad of emotions brought on by projections of others’ opinions, comments, and reactions to things that in all cases have nothing to do with you and have everything to do with them and how they perceive the world they live in. Choose to rise and live above the madness in a perpetual place of love. Go inward and soar!

7. Invest in yourself first, then others daily. One of the hardest things for many of us is to decide the best way we can balance loving everyone–including ourselves at the same time. As for me: Been there. Tried that. Epic fail. Multiple times in multiple ways. Somehow, in someway, someone always gets the shorter end of the deal and that usually ended up being–you guessed it– me. I now get it. No, I really get it. Seriously. I was so very hardheaded for about a decade, but now, I am back on track. It’s funny how when I was in my 20s I never had this problem, but that’s okay–I’m getting my groove back. Give to yourself so you can have enough to give to others too. Manage your giving. Set boundaries. Manage your time so you can manage your life. What do you want out of life? What makes you happy? When you are fulfilled, it is so much easier to love yourself and others. It is just so much easier to live when you have love within.

It all comes back to love. Love yourself so you can love others. You deserve it. Your family deserves to have the real you around. Your co-workers will probably work better with you when “you” show up. Your life will look and feel so different, refreshed and renewed all because of the love that has grown and now exudes within you.  That’s what living LOVE daily is all about: loving from the inside out.  

LOVE, the poetry collection by Toy Parker, is set for release on

Valentine’s Day 2014!