Good morning friends!
Recently I ran across the saying when I was scrolling online: "You have not met everyone who is going to love you."
My mind lingered long as I sat with this quote because so often I think the opposite! It's easy to get to certain age (whatever it may be) and think you've met all the loving or interesting people you are ever going to meet. You start shutting down. You think savoring the best parts of your past is all you can do.
But does it have to be this way?
I want to offer our word this week as an alternative. Receptive: taking in, receiving or accepting ideas, requests, experiences.
Today, I'm wondering how receptive are you to something new popping up in your story and surprising you?
Recently, I listened to a video made by Hadley Vlados, a New Orleans hospice nurse who regularly shares her stories on her social media channels (and also a best selling book) of her patients and what she learns about life's beautiful moments even in the face of loss.
Now for someone who has been given a finite time to live would be the last person you'd imagine to be receptive to a new relationship, right? A hospice nurse would be the last person you'd expect to be not jaded and open to the new? But this was not the situation.
Nurse Hadley tells a story about one of her patients, an older gentleman recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. At first, this man, she said was grumpy-- defeated that doctors said his life on earth would soon be over. There was so much more he wanted to do with his family and friends.
Yet, as Nurse Hadley came in and began talking about the fantasy football league her husband had just gotten her into-- he piped up! He loved football.
In the daily visits that followed this once solemn man beamed at the opportunity to be Nurse Hadley's football teacher. Nurse Hadley learned much and soon won her league that season.
I loved this story because it showed openness on both sides to connect with love as it presented itself.
If you are a living, breathing human you haven't yet met all the people who are going to love you. You haven't met all the people who need you to love them too.
The only question is for you, then, are you receptive to it? I hope so!
XO
Elizabeth
P.S. Here's another video of Nurse Hadley that I particularly liked-- it's about the one thing that gets her excited out of bed each morning to go to work. Take a listen!
