The 11th Commandment

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. (John 13:34)

Earlier our Office Manager came in my office crying, asking me for our President's cellphone number. I thought somebody died in her family or something, so I hastily looked for the number and gave it to her. I asked her what's wrong, and she said our VP of Sales got angry at her and started cussing at her. Apparently they were trying to get referrals and they couldn't get any, so our VP said it's because of the sound of her voice and the way she talks. So he got upset and started dropping the F bombs on her.

This incident reminded me of how much love is needed in the world... especially at home and in the workplace. Everybody keeps saying we need world peace, but how do we achieve that? By love.

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."
"Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world."
-Mother Teresa

We are all brothers and sisters, and God is our father. If that's the case, shouldn't we be loving one another? A lot of times it's not, because it is really hard. Two months ago I started asking God to help me be a more patient and loving person. I prayed to Mother Teresa to help me be like her. The past weekend I attended a Singles Weekend Retreat, and one of the things that was said in one of the talks was that if you ask God to make you a more loving person, He will give you to most difficult person to love. Which is exactly the case for me, with my service and my day job, it is a real struggle. I'm not exactly the most patient person in the world. Most of the time I fail, but what else can I do but pick myself up and try again.

A thousand times I've failed
Still Your mercy remains
Should I stumble again
I'm caught in Your grace
-From the Inside Out, Hillsong

And I know I need to work on this because every time I am asked to give a talk, for some reason the talk I'm supposed to give relates to what I'm currently going through. Like I am being taught a lesson through the talk. So when I was asked by SFC South Maryland to give a talk in their upcoming Christian Life Program, I said yes because I always see it as God asking me to do this for Him - so why would I say no, right? - and also because I want to support my friends in that unit (and then what usually happens is, several hours before the talk I kick myself for accepting the task because I hate public speaking. But that's another story, moving on...).

So what do you know, the talk I'm supposed to give is Christian Ideal: Loving Your Neighbor. I laughed when I learned what talk it was. I said wow God, that's so not subtle at all. I guess I need to start working on myself then. Otherwise I'd be a hypocrite.

Our VP just came in and started joking about the incident, like he didn't care that he made somebody cry. It's a good thing I was helping a client with a network issue over the phone, or I would have been expected to get in on the joke too, as did the other people in the office.

Or maybe it's not a good thing, maybe I should have been a witness of love.