🌿 Experience: Every experience adds a chapter to the book of our lives

My family — the beginning of so many chapters of love.

The day before my mom passed away, we went to church and out to lunch. It was a simple Sunday. She wore her favorite sweater, and we lingered over the meal longer than usual. We talked about nothing in particular — the weather, the flowers outside the window, a memory that made her smile. I didn’t know it then, but that quiet afternoon would become one of the most sacred chapters in our story.

Since that day, I’ve been thinking about how every experience — even the ones that break us open — adds something essential to who we are. Some experiences leave soft brushstrokes on the canvas of our lives. Others carve deep lines that change our shape entirely. Each moment, each memory, each goodbye, writes another line in the book we’re living.

In these past weeks, I’ve been learning about love in a new way — not the easy, everyday kind, but the love that lives inside devotion. Devotion to being present. Devotion to intention. Devotion to honoring what matters most, even when the familiar world begins to dissolve.

Love, I’m finding, is less about emotion and more about commitment. It’s how we keep showing up — for the people we care about, for the values that guide us, for the life we’re still creating. Love asks us to stay steady, to tend gently, to listen deeply. It asks us to live aligned with the quiet truths we hold sacred.

Grief has its own kind of wisdom. It slows us down and invites us to notice — the tenderness of a memory, the quiet rhythm of a day, the way someone’s presence lingers in the smallest details. My mother’s love continues in these subtle ways: in how I pause before rushing, in the patience I offer others, in the way I soften when I see beauty.

Every experience adds a chapter. This one — filled with both ache and awe — is teaching me that devotion is not something we give up when life changes; it’s something we grow into.

I don’t know what the next chapter will bring, but I do know this: love remains. And when we live with intention, every experience — even loss — becomes part of a larger story of becoming.

🌱 Reflection Prompt:

What chapter are you living right now?

Where is love asking you to be devoted, intentional, and fully present?