Capacity To Love

 

I work in a place that is a genuine family-like community.  We regularly receive emails from one another both requesting and offering needed or surplus items.  

A couple months ago I opened an email in which my boss was offering ten starts off her wild hydrangeas.  She was thinning them to make her window view more clear and open and because the flowering shrubs had grown so large.  We simply needed to show up during the designated time with our own cardboard box or bucket and some newspaper to help transport them.  

I was one of the fortunate first ten to respond and as I lugged the heavy box home with the ragged looking green starter covered in rich soil I really didn't know what they would look like or how they would do.  George added it to our backyard landscaping with some fertilizer and we didn't think a lot more about it. 

When we got home from our trip last week the hydrangea had burst into full bloom.  It turns out (logically) that there are now ten of us who have these beautiful plants in our yards blooming together.  That makes me smile.

When I posted a picture thanking Donna, she commented that instead of just thinning them, it gave her own hydrangeas more space to grow and bloom even bigger.  She would be ready to share again next spring.  

This is how love and charity work.  The more we share it with others, the greater our capacity to bloom and love grows.  With each child added to my family, with each move our family has made, with each new classroom of children my heart has found a new and richer room to love more.  The tender feelings toward friends and family simply expand and enrich my soul.

Paul E Koelliker powerfully explained how this gift comes from Heaven.   "There is seemingly no end to the expansive capacity to love.  The feeling of love from our Heavenly Father is like a gravitational pull from heaven. As we remove the distractions that pull us toward the world and exercise our agency to seek Him, we open our hearts to a celestial force which draws us toward Him. Nephi described its impact as “even unto the consuming of [his] flesh”  (2 Nephi 4:21).  This same power of love caused Alma to sing a “song of redeeming love”  (Alma 5:26).  It touched Mormon in such a way that he counseled us to “pray … with all the energy of [our] heart” that we might be filled with His love  (Moroni 7:48).

What a beautiful gift that reminds us we can make more room in our circles.  We can freely share love with others.  We can help others bloom too.