Free to Love Your Family

The terrorist claim responsibility for another attack, this time it was in Brussels, Belgium. Dozens are dead, over a hundred are injured. Just like that. Lives of all ages. People who worked hard, people who had dreams, people who loved people, people just like you and I. Yet here you are, reading this blog.

Death is a concept my mind has difficulty comprehending. I am an extremist in being a lover of life. The possibility that it could end at any unknown second, regardless of our dreams, desires and relationships is something that makes me question life entirely. But at best, the thought is humbling.

On mornings like this I am reminded of how little importance my personal ambitions are, my social status, and my future career moves.

On mornings like this I want to call my drunk father. On mornings like this, I so badly want to be with my beautifully broken family.

See, I think the reason that sudden death scares us so much is because we spend so many of our days living as if the world owes us something, forgetting that each day is a gift. We spend so many of our days focused on changing things, on the future, on making things better. Better than what we came from, or who we came from. Many of us, striving for independence, go through life attempting to carve a better path for ourselves. With hard work, determination, and doing things “the right way” unlike examples of our past. It’s a never ending mission.

And I think the reason sudden death is so scary is because we feel like we didn’t accomplish everything we wanted to yet. We feel unfulfilled.

The truth is, you can acquire all of the fame and success in the entire world, and still be completely empty inside. You can tally up an endless list of accomplishments, and it will never be enough. No matter how much you acquire, life will never make sense. Not without love.

Love is the biggest sacrifice you will ever make, if you dare to make it. There is no greater risk of loving someone who may have no inclination of loving you in return. And, yet, living without love is worse than this, Because love makes sense of life.

When you have love, true and unconditional, there is no level of disaster, no level of poverty, no devastation that could take that from you. Not even death itself. In fact, love literally conquers death.

1 John 3:16 says, "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.”

And so there is something you should know, and that is this: you are free to love your family.

Yes, free.

There is freedom in loving those who’ve hurt you. There is freedom in forgiving those who’ve disappointed you. It’s a secret freedom that rare know about. There’s this misconception that resentment will provide this magical fuel for success. I disagree. In fact, I believe those exact things are a recipe for failure.

Consider this concept: Humans are imperfect. Life is hard. People make mistakes.

These things have been true since the beginning of time and they will always be true.

Here’s even more truth. You have one lifetime with a set number of days, everyone with a different unknown number. In these days you have humans assigned to you who wear the label “family.” These humans can be of blood relation, or of marriage or of friendships or completely by choice. And no matter what they’ve done, or what your relationship with them looks like. I hope you know that you are free to love them.

I’m writing from a place where this truth wasn’t always obvious to me. In fact I spent a lot of time being told the exact opposite, that I was free to detach myself entirely from these relationships. And from personal attempt, living this way is pure misery.

When I adopted the concept that I was also free to love my family, in all of it’s broken glory—was the day my world changed entirely. My definition of love changed, and the way I looked at life. I saw beauty in places I never would have. Rare and authentic beauty--and I have never been more free since.

Truth is, we have control of very little in this world. We can’t control terror groups, we can’t control disasters or tragedy, we can’t control the mistakes of others. All of these things will come. But we can control our perspective. We can control our hearts.

And so, don’t wait until tomorrow to forgive, because tomorrow may never come. Don’t wait until tomorrow to love again, because you’ll risk living an entire life of missing the point.

Instead, be free today. Free your mind, free your heart, and choose to see life through mosaic lenses. Lenses of beauty and distortment. Beauty to me is authenticity. Beauty is when pain is so heavy it’s drowning, and yet small fires of love still burn in the souls of everyone in the water.

And your family may not share your last name. They may not share your eye color, or your hair color, maybe not even your skin color. Maybe you have the same blood, maybe you don’t. Maybe nobody else gets how you are related to a certain person, and maybe you don’t even remember yourself. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Love them. With all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind. Because that is the point of life. That is what humans are engineered to do. That is what sets us free and restores our humanity. That is what it means to be alive. Love is ruthless in its expectations of our hearts, it demands all of us. But it is the greatest risk you’ll ever take.

You can still be different. You can still set your own path, and design your own future. Disagree with every choice they make if you must, but allow yourself to love. Allow yourself to forgive. You deserve that luxury.

Living this way allows every day to be fulfilling. And the thought of an unknown ending isn’t so scary when you know you’ve already accomplished the most difficult challenge--The one of truly living.

Whatever it is. Let it go. It’s not worth it.

Not when you can be free today.