I created a painting of a big red heart with the word "LOVE" written in the center. Covering the heart is a wire mesh filled with many charms. This painting is titled, The Power of Love. When I created it I was thinking of a teaching from A Course in Miracles that talks about how we gather various trinkets to make us feel fulfilled when what we are searching for is right here inside of us.

We all have LOVE at the core of our being but over our lifetime the losses, betrayals, and disappointments have made us feel unsure about LOVE. We may have given our love to another and experienced that love being rejected, misused, and misunderstood. We have learned to place a covering over LOVE in order to protect it and keep it safe. With our love safe and secure inside of us, we expect to feel great, very satisfied, fulfilled. But, we usually feel empty.

When we keep LOVE protected for safekeeping, we also make it unavailable to our self. Feeling empty and unloved, we begin to search for trinkets for people, titles, roles, labels, houses, awards, food, and all sorts of trinkets to help us feel full and satisfied. We shop till we drop, getting the latest new digital toy on the market. We watch reality shows of others failing at the presented challenges, making us feel stronger. There is an empty hunger that can never be fully satisfied because what we really want to feel is LOVE.

This is a Divine paradox. We are looking for the LOVE that lives right there inside of us, behind the mesh shield. The love that we are seeking lives and breaths right here in the center of our own heart presence. We can be very thankful because the power of LOVE is so potent that it has the power to tear apart that mesh shield. Once a tiny crack of love escapes, love can keep pouring out.

I look at this painting often to remind myself that LOVE is right here inside of me. LOVE lives right in the center of my heart. LOVE is my identity. LOVE is my power. LOVE is my presence. My healing journey, my spiritual journey, has been about releasing my attachment to the trinkets, to cut away the shield of protection, to allow myself to know the power of LOVE. I ask LOVE to show itself to me as I sit and breath in its essence. I ask LOVE to show me the way. Now that is the Power of LOVE.