First Truth, Then Love

Vernon Howard taught the truth. I got in just under the wire to be considered his student. He died in 1992 at the age of 74. I had been studying him intensely for 8 years. His secretary had some surprising words for me after his death. “First the truth is taught,” she said, “then love.” I listened as she spoke to me intimately. “The new teaching will be about love.” And perhaps that is where I come in as a writer.

I still consider myself a Vernon Howard student, but love predominates in my writing. I start with a true premise that becomes imbued with love. How can it be otherwise?

My husband Bob’s death was brutally true. His diagnosis equally so. “You have less than three years,” his cancer doctor told him. Three years. That is how long our little girl lived after her diagnosis. Now the truth hit me in the face again. I went to pieces, but my core was strong.

I helped Bob fight the good fight until he was told by that same doctor that it was time to quit, time to hang the gloves up, so to speak. Bob wasn’t having any of it, but I knew the doctor had his best interests in mind. Only transfusions were keeping him alive.

So he spent 4 days in hospice before he left the body. The truth had been told. Now love would begin to have its say.

There was no Facebook when Bob died, but I ran a Yahoo List where I kept people up-to-date on his progress. I kept writing.

I am still writing. Love is the second teaching. But without the first, you wouldn’t have the stamina or the wisdom to go on with the second one.

I am coming into a deeper and deeper sense of my own. Some of you feel this. The ones that are monitoring themselves daily. The ones that want truth and love in the right order. Love is softening me like ice cream left out on the counter. No point in giving people brain freeze.

Vicki Woodyard

5 Comments

  1. I like the order that is Truth coming first it gives a good foundation so that love can come about. Without truth there is no meaning for love. Truth grounds you too it makes you able to survive the storms and then love can be a comfort and brings about understanding.

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