One thing that I need to stop being abysmal at is showing other people the kind of love I want them to show me. If I want people to be patient with me, I should also be patient with them. If I don't want people to judge me, I shouldn't judge them, either. If I want people to respect my beliefs, I should respect theirs, too. And so on.
It's tempting to withhold love until I have felt loved myself, but that's not really practical. If everyone withheld love until someone else loved them first, then the world would have much less love in it, and there would be desperately little love to go around.
Instead, we should all try to love proactively. We should encourage those from whom we would seek encouragement. We should speak well of those whom we hope would speak well of us. We should show kindness to those of whom we would ask for kindness.
Granted, this won't always work the way we would like it to. It is possible that we'll show love to people who will then not show such love to us in return. At those times, we can hope that our expressions of love will still be rewarded by God, to whom we can also show the love we hope to receive.
Love always comes back to those who show it, so if you want people to show you love, it helps to show them love first.
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