My One Word: enough:: Women who Love

My one word journey led me to a wonderful women's online magazine: SheLoves. I've read a bit, you'd like it. And as I perused I noticed a manifesto for women who love completely. It starts with

Let us be women who Love.

Let us be women willing to lay down our sword words, our sharp looks, our ignorant silence and towering stance and fill the earth now with extravagant Love.

Let us be women who Love.

Let us be women who make room

.Let us be women who open our arms and invite others into an honest, spacious, glorious embrace.

It goes on. You can read it here. But before you go, really read these words. "Let us be willing to lay down our sword words..." I think about the girls on my daughters volleyball team who can level each other with a word, "...move your feet," or an eye roll at a misstep. I think about my friend who is proud of the fact that she needs only one word and a look to make her point. I recall the biting words leaving my mouth in frustration at an co-worker, a sister, my child. I wonder what it would be like if we all agreed that we didn't need to take ground, show some one, or make a point. But instead, loved. Made room. Opened our arms and invited others into an honest, spacious, glorious embrace.

We'd have enough and we'd offer enough. (Extravagant love rears it's beautiful head again.)

For me, I'll live in the first stanza this week and I don't think I'll wait for the rest of the we. I have the will and the Spirit driven power to simply love, without the sword words, offering room.

I have that to offer and to share.

My One Word: enough:: Your Love

This word enough is interesting.

Last Monday, I was invited to a private concert with Casting Crowns. Me, my lovely friend Lori, and about 148 others I've not yet met. We were sitting in the chapel at Mariners Church and then, all of a sudden, we were singing with Casting Crowns, listening to their stories and worshipping.

That is more than any enough I can think of. 

It felt a lot like abundance.

Especially when Lori bought lunch.

Today I was listening again to Casting Crowns.
And I began to muse over the words of Your Love is Extravagant.

These words connected so beautifully to my one word: enough.

In God's economy, extravagance, His gifts, become my enough.

Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, it is intimate
I feel like moving to the rhythm of Your grace 
Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place
Your love is extravagant

Spread wide in the arms of Christ is the love that covers sin
No greater love have I ever known You considered me a friend
Capture my heart again

Spread wide in the arms of Christ is the love that covers sin
No greater love have I ever known; You considered me a friend

Capture my heart again
Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, it is intimate


How about it? How do you connect with the extravagance of grace?

One Word: enough :: the secret of contentment

This morning, sitting at my kitchen table, I was listening, again, to Kenton Beshore's thoughts on Journaling. (You can always connect from the right panel, too.) I'm a writer. I love morning pages (three pages straight, no stopping, no editing, first, first thing in the morning). Love.

As I seek after what my One Word will reveal, I was moved to revisit the simple plan Kenton shares. And listening, I stumbled onto the most divine truth. Truth because I know it. Truth because I live it. And truth because if we test it, it proves itself.

The secret of contentment.
And it is simply this:

Love what you have.

One Word: enough :: a phone call

Last night I went through the endless phone messages that we just don't get to on the answering machine. Well! I guess I use my cell phone more than I thought. Note. And there was that mishap with Kohl's where in the midst of the holidays a bill wasn't paid and they called fifteen times. Note. Paid. Done. Oh dear.

About seven calls in I heard his voice. My wonderful pastor Harold. "Beautiful ones. I noticed you haven't been here in a couple of weeks and just want to remind you, you're loved..." And while he goes on it hits so hard.

The weeks away, first a sick child.
Then a group oversleep.
Then just a week away.
They all added up and they all mattered to someone else.

I felt, I knew, that my little choices to be home for a bit might be noticed or counted. Might be.

My church is going through upheaval. Upheaval is to be expected when your stated mission is to plant 100 churches in 40 years. One and two went by and the shift wasn't so big. Three was painful, my favorite young pastor and his sweeter than sweet wife moved into Compton to establish their church and of course, friends went with them. Friends I love and friends I haven't met but made up the tapestry of our church, their side of the room, their row. Many church plants later we're ok. The occasional twinge of loss is there, but overall, we're good. But then two pastors felt called, together, to plant fairly nearby. Several people, mostly from my service felt moved to move.

The pain comes slowly because families think and decide and stay away for a while and then go. A month ago, it felt to me like I was wearing twenty bandaids and they would be taken off one-by-one and rather slowly. Painful.

So when my girl wasn't feeling well, I climbed into bed and with her and snuggled. Safe and warm. I didn't think of the feeling. I was away. But as I write, I see we became an empty set of chairs. Someone else's removed adhesive.

Then the words: "Beautiful ones..."
I heard the voice of the man who taught me the words, grace stacked on grace. I hear his inflection, his determination, his love. For a moment, I remember how he asked me to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to work and love and watch what God would do. Remembered his reminder at my grandmother's funeral and then my other grandmother's graveside memorial, that God's oceanic love is enough.

Enough.

Enough.

It takes courage to carry on. It takes grace and peace and it takes just a word to remember that courage and love and peace can all be borrowed and shared and that much of the time, we don't even know we're loaning. We just standing there. Shoulder-to-shoulder with word of song coming from our hearts and it matters.

Enough.