Priorities

"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you LOVE. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good Morning' at total strangers."
-Maya Angelou

I've talked about my priorities: God, husband, child, others, and lastly self. That makes sense in theory. But it's not so easily put into practice, at least by me...

I'm guilty of worrying about what others think. Of putting my best foot forward for people I don't know to try to make a good impression, but letting my family see the worst side of me since they "have" to love me.

And I find it far easier to talk on the phone to someone I don't know and probably will never meet than to call my own family.

Now it may be true that your loved ones treat you in a way a stranger would never dare to - with a lack of respect or harsh word. But are you guilty of the same thing?

I've learned the hard way that no one "has" to love you. If you spend all your energy - putting all your priorities - on others outside the family, you may lose the ones you love.

My own challenge - and yours, too, should you choose to accept - is not to take love for granted, but to treat those I love with the highest honors...