You see him lying in his bed, with his tiny head on the pillow, his eyes closed and peace all around him ... every single thought and felling he awakes in you is tender and sweet.
        The beauty and fragility of life right before your eyes. 
        When you have carried the fruit of love in your womb, you understand far better the meaning of daddy´s caress, the sweetness of mummy´s care, the meaning of grandma´s and grandaddy´s spoiling.

       Is there anything sweeter than a baby´s love leaning on its mother´s chest? It doesn´t matter if it is a bear, a deer, a dog, a cat or a duck, love is tender and sweet, naturally.

       Have you ever noticed how loving children are?  They are that tender sweet, that they forget a spanking in less than 15 minutes.  They respond to a smile, to a sweet voice, to a call, to a caress, to a hug, to a kiss immediately, without hesitation, without hypocrisy, without fear. They seem to have the power to identify love.  They sense bitterness, rudeness, lack of sensibility, and seem to avoid it or hide away from it instantly.

       As we grow up, we learn to control life and restrain our feelings with our thoughts, which have very often been misled and misguided by haughtiness: the pride of the authority that finds its happiness in governing others and determining what to do or not do.  We all learn to smile and be happy by receiving the approval from those above us, who have the right to punish and reward our deeds and accomplishments.

       Our lack of tenderness and sweetness is nothing but the result of the loss of our innocence.  We have to face that we have established limits that do not allow us to be who we can be, if we can be in contact with our deepest feelings.  We ignore our potential and we fail in being the best we can be; and we fail in enjoying life as much as we could, if we had the bound to our real self.

       Freedom, protection, truth, strength and righteousness are some of the things that are necessary in order to keep our sweetness and our tenderness untouched, and even help them grow to maturity, where we can use them with our will; and we also have to learn to restrain ourselves from giving them to those who might use them as an opportunity to hurt us, and even destroy us, because of our lack of knowledge and understanding of the functioning of life.

       In order to be sweet and tender we need a loving father and a loving mother who will guide us with knowledge, mercy, wisdom, patience, provision and faithfulness through the path of life.

       We need to get rid of our selfishness which is destructive for love.  We need awareness and willingness to love.  We need to live in the constant responsibility of loving ourselves and loving our neighbor, starting with our spouse and children; with our parents, brothers and sisters.

      One of the first things we have to understand about life is that we are individuals, we are unique, and this uniqueness is what should be found during the first years of our lives.  It is then that we discover our gifts, our lacks, our likes, our strengths, our weaknesses.  And that is how we have to be guided in our growth.
     Whenever we tend to impose our “ways” upon those under our care, we are obstructing the healthy growth of a person. Life is “a living thing” and it is constantly changing, constantly “growing”, by every change and achievement we make.  By losing our sweetness and our tenderness we are suffocating life, instead of letting it flow and continue to grow to perfection.  All this results in sadness instead of happiness, despair instead of peace, injustice instead of justice, selfishness instead of love. 

       It is very important to be committed to love in order to live seeking being perfected every day of our lives.  Love is perfect in itself, but we aren´t; we need to get rid of all imperfection: weakness, pride, vanity, envy, selfishness, resentment, anger, and so on.  We have to deal with everything that antagonizes with love.  All this will appear as we walk and live.  It will include every single relationship we have and build, from the persons we meet at the store to our closest relatives, from animals to the things we have to care for in our different functions in life. 
       When we say "being perfected", we don´t speak of any prototype; we just believe there is a maximum for each one of us, that we should all long to reach. 

      Love has a perfect order that we have to respect.  Integrity and faithfulness are two important ingredients we need, to be able to walk all the road in victory.  Every person we meet, every new activity, every new thing is a challenge, an invitation to continue to find the greatness of life and its limitless beauty.  There is an inexhaustible source inside of each one of us, reason why we will never get bored, nor will we ever stop discovering new experiences that will make our lives worth living.

      Our children need to grow free from fear.  They have to know they are beautiful and perfect because they were born to love and be loved.  They have to grow free from the fear of judgment, fear of punishment, fear of rejection, fear of pain, fear of lack, fear of evil.

       For all this to be true we have to be there to teach them the laws that will make all this possible. 

       Transgression will always bring fear, and its consequences are very often painful and destructive, which hurts faith and its laws.  Knowing all this beforehand will prevent us from leaving faith, and will encourage us to walk in intelligence, and strive to achieve happiness through keeping the law.
       Humility and forgiveness, purity and faithfulness, truth and faith will always bring us back to the path of love, if we should go astray for any reason.

       By learning this from the beginning, tenderness and sweetness will never leave our sides, for we will miss them as soon as they aren´t present, and will always be looking for the cause of their absence.  Love will see to it that we are loving people, and loving people are always happy because they love.

       There are times to give and times to receive.  There´s a time to plant and a time to harvest.  There are times when we aren´t able to give, but need to receive.  Receiving is completely necessary for us not to go bitter, be unbelieving or selfish (proud).  When we are in pain, when we feel weak, sad, tired or distressed, we need to receive love from the outside.  Whenever people fail us by not being perfect in love, God will meet the need.  God is always enough, God is always present, God is always faithful.

       There are things that are evident, as a cut, an illness or a loss, but there are other things that are more subtle, and we have to be careful not to fail to see and respect the sensibility of those around us. As we walk with our children, side by side, we will learn to understand their feelings, and grow more loving, by sharing their hearts and not just trying to state facts.

        We have to learn to lead our lives, protecting and loving, instead of commanding and ruling.  Tenderness and sweetness lie not alone in caressing and kissing, but also in being observing, attentive, still and understanding; in understanding and meeting the need; in being deep and not shallow; in being caring and not careless.

       Sweetness and tenderness are the things we need to develop our skill to adjust to every situation and every need.  If we have these in us and believe in ourselves, we will avoid fear, despair, insecurity, and many other things that draw us away from perfect love.  We will have peace of mind, faith, patience, wisdom, and will face everything with love and responsibility, without fainting at sadness, despair or ignorance.  We will do everything we can, everything we should and everything we must, in due time.  Life will be fairer, prettier, sweeter, more pleasant and more rewarding.

Let us not fear sweetness, but its absence.   
Let us not mix up tenderness with weakness.   
Let us not underestimate the power of love 
and let us not lose our chance of living life the right way.   
Let us be free to love 
and free to learn from life, as we walk.

“A sound heart is the life of the flesh.”  Prvbs. 14:30

“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life.” Prvb. 15:4

Other recommended Blogs:  "Money, Means or End?";  "Vanity";  "Selfishness"; "Happiness"; "Loneliness".


Songs:

The Hunchback of N.D.: "Heaven´s light"
G. Benson: "Nothin´s gonna change my love for you"
James Taylor:  "Only one"
Camilo Sesto:  "Jamás" (Spanish)
Savage Garden:  "I want to stand with you on a mountain"
Johny Mathis:   "I´m glad there is you"
E. Humperdinck:  "We fell in love"
Roberto Carlos:  "De corazón a corazón" (Spanish)
R. Stewart:  "Have I told you lately"