“Love more,” she said. This came from someone who made a big impact on my life. She was a sweet older woman who was a member of the Church of Christ, Scientist, I attended, and who became my next-door neighbor at one point. Often in her testimonies of healing at church, she would end with this: “You have to love more.”
I knew she wasn’t talking about just spouting niceties to others, but expressing the pure love of God, the love that Christ Jesus taught. Her testimonies of healing included many examples, some very moving. I was left thinking, How does one love more? Particularly when losses seem so big and injustices staggering.
Later on in her life, when my church friend’s ex-husband was widowed, she let him live in a house on her property. Every evening I would see her walk down the stairs of her home and across her yard to that little house, with a bowl of freshly made mashed potatoes for him. I remember commenting to myself, “She is a testament to her words. She lives love!” I was talking to this man, her ex-husband, one day over the fence, and he could not say enough good about his former wife. In fact, he was in awe of her.
