When There Is Love

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour.  What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. 

Victor E. Frankl

We know all too well that all any of us have concretely is this moment now, this moment that we are experiencing in this time and place.  Yesterday is gone, just a memory.  Tomorrow is not a guarantee.  It is this moment that implores us to embrace it – find meaning in it and ultimately gaining hope in it.   We must not waste time reliving what has gone by, those things we regret or wish would not have been so.  All we can do is learn from the past and grow because of it.  We must not spend precious time worrying about what may come tomorrow, squandering the enjoyment of the moment we have now.  As this year comes to its close and we anticipate the new one that we hope will come it is important that we celebrate and find our meaning in what we are given today, this hour, to experience and to know.

We are all on a quest, a search, for meaning in our lives.  Some of us are starting to find it, but others of us are deeply uncertain and are having a difficult time discerning who we are, where to go or what to do.  At times, we all wrestle with finding meaning in our lives.  But we all do have a choice to make this moment now, count.  We all need a reason to live.

We had a friend who passed away from a debilitating illness at a young age several years ago.  In the last few weeks of his life he lost virtually every one of his physical abilities – he couldn’t walk, feed himself, dress himself, get up off his bed or care for his most personal bodily functions.  He lost all dignity too.  He depended on someone else to do everything for him.  But he could talk and he could still think and he could still feel.  In one of his last conversations with us he made the most profound statement –

When everything else is stripped away, I realized that all we have is love.  And that is all that matters.

Our friend found his meaning in the love that surrounded him – the love of his family and closest friends, and for him the love of God.  He understood, when nothing else in this life remained, that love was all that mattered.  He understood that as long as he knew he was loved, he was able to embrace each moment he had left and live those moments with peace and even joy.

As we close out this year and begin a new one, we hope that you will know, when all else is stripped away, that there is love — that you are loved.  And if you know that, your life does have meaning.  It does have a purpose.  It does have hope.  It does have a reason – a vital reason – for being.

Photo by Fadi Xd on Unsplash