Love Can Begin In Gentle Ways

Love Can Begin In Gentle Ways

When I first moved in with my husband, I left behind my little dog Skippy with my elderly parents, because they loved him deeply too.

I remember carrying that heartbreak quietly.

Sometimes people think love begins in the big moments, but often it begins in the gentle ones.

My husband already had a two-year-old Labrador named Toffee, but he knew how much I missed Skippy. Not long after, he surprised me with a Labrador puppy of my own.

I named her Duchess. 💛

Looking back now, I realize it wasn’t really about being given a puppy.

It was about being loved tenderly.

It was about someone noticing grief that I hadn’t fully put into words and trying to help carry it with kindness.

My husband’s confirmation name is Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi, and it is so fitting for him.

Saint Francis once said:

“Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”

There has always been something deeply gentle in my husband’s heart toward animals and living things. I think tenderness is one of the quiet ways love reveals itself most clearly.

And maybe that is why peace at home matters so much to me now.

Not because life has always been easy…

but because love, at its best, makes room for softness in a hard world.

“The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.”

— Numbers 6:24–25

Helene

🌿💛 Rosemary Thyme