We learn to love people from the outside in. With our children, it’s the other way around.

With nearly everyone you love in your life you’ve started from the outside and worked inwards. You liked the way they smiled, the things they said, how they looked. You liked it and wanted to know more, so you spent more time together. The more you learned the more you liked. Liking turned into loving. The more time you spend together, the more of them is revealed to you. The deeper in you go, the deeper your love grows.

But this doesn’t happen with your children. You love them, not for who they are; their values, personality or passions, because they haven’t shaped those yet. You just love them, from the inside out. Over time they pick up traits that you may or may not like, but you still love them. In moments they may do things you think are horrible. In those moments, you don’t like them but you still love them.

Inside out, outside in.

There’s a difference. But everyone is someone’s child. Everyone should have been loved for just being, but not all of us were. I wonder what would happen if we approached life, and people from that inside out way, rather than the outside in.