Thanks for joining us for another day full of inspiration with the Christian Science Daily Lift.

Sharing from Maryland Heights, Missouri is Christian Science practitioner, Kim Hedge.

A friend of mine was wrestling with the idea of loving God with all her whole heart, soul, and mind, as the Bible speaks about, and still have room to love her partner and her kids.

So she turned to God in prayer to ask how she could think about this. And she got an answer.

The thought came as God speaking.

If you love me most, you'll love them more.

I've thought about that guidance many times, and it has been a great help.

Not only loving family and those I already love,

but it has especially helped me with those I've been hurt by,

or maybe those I don't share the same opinions with. We are presented with lots of

reasons not to like those who are different from us, different politics, cultures, genders,

religions, etc. Like my friend, I find it is helpful to turn to God in prayer.

I start every morning usually declaring my love for God and affirming God's love for me.

And then I go on to include my family, my sweet dog, my community, and I go out from there.

But one morning, as I declared my love for God, that thought came again.

If you love me most, you'll love them more. And in that moment, I was flooded with love for everyone.

It rippled out into the world, feeling compassion and forgiveness, and a letting go of hurt or resentment, for those I know and those I don't.

Because we are all, each one of us, God's perfect idea, God's creation.

I felt such a sense of warmth and peace and joy and was so grateful

for that reminder my friend shared with me. It's something we can all do. As we love God,

love good, love divine love itself. We will find it so much easier to love others.

Thanks for listening to today's inspiration. Want to share your own inspiration as a daily lift? We'd love to hear from you.

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