The Value of Love
Our focus this week — Dec 24-31: “The Puzzle of Love”
Today’s MotD: The Value of Love. This whole year, doing these daily MotDs and working through all the values presented by Melody Beattie, has been a gradual building up to the value of love. Like we said four days ago, it’s a complicated word and emotion with a full spectrum of meaning: from telling a romantic loved one “I love you”, to casually saying “I love walking in our neighborhood” (which I do, btw).
Growing up, I don’t think I ever heard my parents say “I love you” to each other—at least not in front of us kids. And they never said “I love you” to me or my brothers, that any of us can remember.
While they never said it to us in our early years, they showed it to us in their own way. For my mom it was through taking care of all of us and our household: the cooking, cleaning, shopping, making sure we had clean clothes, making sure we looked nice when we went out, hosting dinners and parties in our home, sewing dresses for me when I was little, and everything in between. But most especially it was through her food that she showed her love, in particular her baking. She made the best desserts. My favorite (and my brothers too) was her bread pudding which she would top with warm chocolate pudding. OMG…it was so good.
With my dad, he showed it by providing for us. He literally put a roof over our heads. He built our house back in the early 1950s when my mom was pregnant with me—I’m the oldest. He was always working; both his regular construction job as well as his side jobs for our church, neighbors, and friends. He was very generous with the people in our community. He mostly expressed his love financially or with his volunteer work. While he didn’t believe in giving us kids an allowance, he made sure we had everything we needed and, for the most part, he made sure we had everything that we wanted.
It wasn’t until I had been through several years of therapy and well into my adult years that I could finally say “I love you” to my mom, to which she responded in kind. That was a big milestone moment for both of us. While it was easier with her, it was more challenging with my dad.
I believe I was in my 60s when I finally told my dad, who was around 90 at the time, “I love you” and it was over the phone during one of our Sunday phone calls. I remember being ultra nervous to say it. I know it was barely audible that first time—I think I was hoping his poor hearing wouldn’t catch it. It took about three more calls before I allowed myself to fully declare it and be comfortable with saying it loud enough for him to hear it. Surprisingly, a few more calls after that, he said it back to me. That was huge for both of us and it meant the world to me. From that point on, we regularly said it to each other.
Essentially we’re encouraged to stop holding back when it comes to sharing our love with others because, in the end, it only hurts us the most when we do hold back.
How about you ? Do you value love in your life ? Who do you love and how do you let them know ? What do you love about yourself and your life ?
BTW…Here’s the before…the front and back view of today’s puzzle piece and the pretty ceramic box that holds all my numbers from which I randomly choose each day’s puzzle piece number:
Peace & Blessings,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
🔆 transforming soul whispers into mandalas and channeled messages for clarity, peace, and love
ABOUT THE 2025 Mandalas of the Day
Throughout the year, I’ll be building one large (48”x48”) Tibetan-styled Mandala one piece at a time…one puzzle piece at a time, that is. The mandala design and the reversed puzzle side were printed on artist-quality watercolor paper. The forward facing puzzle side was printed on a 48”x48” wood panel.
Each day, at random, I’ll be painting in watercolors one of the 365 watercolor puzzle pieces, that by the end of the year will become Archangel Mandala #4. Read more about the Archangel Series. The word/message for each piece will be inspired by Melody Beattie’s book “52 Weeks of Conscious Contact”.
Ultimately, the message of this mandala is about how we are all uniquely part of the one.
Mandala of the Day 