LISTEN to this blog post by clicking here: https://www.podbean.com/media/player/xgk33-60cf96

I have had lots of opportunity in my life to fill needs. I have 7 kids … there are ALWAYS needs to be met.

Sometimes I think the amount of food I’ve had to prepare and “deliver” over the last 16 years is unfathomable. It’s like being a mama bird and having 7 little mouths “chirping” at me to be filled and sustained constantly.

There are more than just physical needs too. There are emotional needs and needs that 4 year olds have to ask a gazillion questions a day and have them answered.

I have learned, that the best course is to fill each need with what that need calls for, in the most direct way I am able. If someone has a headache or is grumpy, most often, the need is a physical one and they are hungry. I feed them nourishing food (most of the time) and that need is met.

When the 4 year old is asking all the questions about all the things the need she has in that moment is to be seen, heard, and acknowledged. If I pay special attention to that need and see her, really look at her, listen to what she’s saying and give her that moment of attention, her need is filled and she moves on.

In all things a need is a hole or an absence and when it is filled that absence disappears.

It would not make sense for me to fill the physical need of nourishment with watching a movie, or to fill the need of acknowledgement that my daughter has with throwing food at her … the most appropriate course is to always look at what the need is – what is the absence? what is causing the absence? – and then to fill that absence with exactly what it calls for.

There is so much going on in this world. It seems broken sometimes. There is hate, anger, violence, frustration, fear, and so many other things that threaten to destroy humanity if we don’t fill those absences with what they call for. And yes, they ARE in fact absences … they are holes and needs that are pleading to be filled. But we must fill them with what will heal the holes not with more life destroying hole making brokenness.

The world is calling for more love. We see it in the way people are treated and in the way people search so desperately to find acceptance. We cannot fill the absence of love except by love.  The world is begging for peace. It is absent everywhere we look. There is violence, war, control and fear… We cannot fill the absence of peace, except with more peace. The world is in desperate need of more kindness and charity. There is coldness, littleness, pettiness, meanness, pride, vanity, judgment everywhere. We cannot fill the need for kindness and charity except by extending more kindness and charity.

LOVE fills the void that is threatening all of us. Love does it. More violence doesn’t do it. More anger won’t help. More separation and ugliness and littleness and fear will not bring what we, as a human family, are so desperately “calling for.” We need more love to be extended. More patience. More kindness. More thoughtfulness. More humility, more hope, more unity, more faith. These are what bring healing and these are how we fill the needs that as a society we have.

My hope and prayer today is that I will be able to extend myself in kindness, in love, in understanding, in peace, in healing, in hope and in faith that we can and will get through hard times when we stick together and focus on love. As I do this, I have a hope that it will strengthen all of us and maybe that little bit of light coming from me will brighten the whole.

God is in and around and through us … together in unity is how we see that. We are connected. WE. ARE. CONNECTED. We can bring healing when we focus on filling the needs that are screaming to be filled. We heal those needs by putting MORE of that beautiful healing energy into the world. Not through more separation, not through more anger, not through more hate but through more unity, more kindness and more love. In embracing and advancing the energy that heals we are doing that which will bring peace to all.

I am mourning today with those that mourn, and using my energy to imagine and hope for and have faith in the healing that will come as we all fill the needs.

Love fills the void. Spread more love today.