Love, Actually: Why Love is So Much More than Valentine’s Day

February 3, 2015 by 1,640 Comments

Even before you read the article, know this: God loves you and Christ died for you! “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

My most recent article is up over at Darling Magazine, and it’s a piece I’ve written about two of life’s most important things: love and gratitude. 

The impending Valentine’s Day can usher in a wealth of emotions: longing, excitement, hurt, confusion, sorrow, hope — or some combination of all of these. For some of us, the holiday offers new opportunities to showcase affection toward our significant other; for others, it is a reminder that we don’t have an other to lavish affection upon.

Darling.Love Actually
But although love is what Valentine’s Day announces from candy store windows and card aisles, what the holiday has come to represent is a narrow understanding of the sentiment.

Love. It’s such a small word for such a large thing. One day could never do it justice because love, in its many forms, isn’t necessarily best seen between two lovers. Don’t get me wrong; I’m deeply in love with my husband and have been for a decade. Romantic love is something I cherish and am grateful for, but my life would be much less whole if this was the only love that I experienced. Love manifests in so many different ways, ways too numerous to count.

Love: the parent who calms the crying child in the night.
Love: the friend who brings the ice cream and sits with you in the tears.
Love: the boyfriend who speaks highly of you when you’re not around.
Love: the co-worker who picks up your slack on a project you’re too exhausted to finish.
Love: the barista who overlooks your demanding voice because she knows you’re tired.
Love: the spouse who chooses you over and over and over.
Love: the boss who praises you in front of others.
Love: the friend who texts just to make sure you’re ok.
Love: the child who wants to sit on your lap to read just one more book.
Love: the roommate who does the dishes. Again.
Love: the stranger who offers you a kind word on a difficult day.

While one day will never encompass the many sides of love, a day centered on love can — if we allow it to — be so much more than the exchange of gifts and candy, so much more than a nice dinner or a piece of jewelry. It can be a day that points us to a deeper reflection of all of the facets of love that we have in our lives. It can be a day, ultimately, for thankfulness.
Please read the rest of the article here, at Darling Magazine–and let me know what kinds of love you are grateful for in your life! (image from Mikaela Hamilton via Darling Magazine)

Valentines Loved

 

 

 

Filed Under: Friendship, Guest Post, Life, Marriage, Parenting, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Year Long Holiday Spirit

December 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment

My newest piece, “A Year Long Holiday Spirit,” is up over at Darling Magazine. I love Christmastime, and this article explores how we can make intentional choices that enable us to live every day of the year with joy, generosity, and intentionality. It was a lovely piece to get to write, and I hope that you’ll take the time to read it at Darling Magazine!

Keeping the Spirit of Christmas in our

The holiday season is here; lights flicker on trees and in windows, friends and family feast together, and the sense of excitement — even of joy — rests on these days.

What is it that makes these weeks so special, so transcendent? The parties? The food? The gifts? Perhaps. But maybe the holiday cheer that hangs like a twinkling veil over this time of year has less to do with these things and more to do with the intentional choices that this time of year births in us. Maybe the incandescence of the holiday season happens because we are choosing to live in a manner that is outwardly-focused … and that makes all the difference.

Below are three themes that the holidays tend to portray. These are aspects of the season that we can carry into every month of the year if our hearts are open and willing.

Generosity
The holidays are all about giving. Gifts are exchanged and as nice as it is to receive gifts, we all know the truth that little compares to the joy of giving meaningful gifts to those we love. Their excitement, their surprise, their thankfulness — that is a gift in and of itself. Many of us also give to charities and organizations that we care about during this time of year. In light of the needs of the world and the spirit of the season, we are moved to share what we have, whether it is little or much, with those who have less than we do. Often, what the holidays help open our eyes to is how much we really do have, while at the same time awakening our hearts to the joy of generosity.

Generosity is less of a financial choice than a mental choice. If we have a mindset of generosity, we can be generous with others in every circumstance, year-round. Donating to a food pantry, volunteering our time at a soup kitchen, babysitting a friend’s child, tutoring students — the opportunities are endless. The good thing is that we can carry this generosity throughout the year. By giving to our favorite charity on a recurring basis or by choosing birthday or wedding gifts for our friends that also give back, we can make a without the holidays prompting us.

Read about Intentionality and Joy over at Darling Magazine right here!

Filed Under: Friendship, Guest Post, Life, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Guest Post at (in)courage: Friendship…A Piece of Cake

April 1, 2014 by 2 Comments

 

I’m excited to be a guest blogger today over at (in)courage, sharing about how a piece of cake helped me know Jesus more fully through friendship.

I have spent most of my life being the pursuer in female friendships. In junior high and high school, I was the one who always invited girlfriends over to my house. In college, I was the one who invited other women to coffee dates. Even now, as a mom, I am the one in our circle of friends who plans the get-togethers most of the time. The other day, when I mentioned scheduling another dinner, one of my friends laughingly responded, “I was just thinking to myself — Ann needs to organize another girl’s night!”

And I don’t mind it. Really. I’m outgoing, proactive, social. I like bringing women together and helping to create a space in which we can rest, reflect, and laugh together. It’s important. It doesn’t happen enough.

But sometimes I forget how special it feels to be pursued by other women in friendship. Last week, I was reminded.

Read the rest of the article here!

 

Filed Under: Friendship, God, Guest Post

Friendship: A Reflection After Hope Spoken

March 31, 2014 by 7 Comments

Friendship at Hope Spoken

Friendship. It’s such an important word, such a weighty word. For many of us, it carries memories that both encourage and wound.

I am thinking about friendship this morning because I just spent the past weekend at Hope Spoken. There, I met many women who became new friends, connected with women I had only previously “met” online, and spent time with one of my dear friends from Wheaton as we sat by a pool in Dallas.

The weekend was a gift. I was not expecting to get to go to Hope Spoken, although I had been wishing I could go for about a year. Last Monday, four days before the conference began, God started weaving things together and made the way for me to attend. I am still amazed, this morning, that I spent the past three days in Texas, soaking up God’s love and truth with 250 other women from around the country.

I loved making new friends at Hope Spoken. The extrovert in me loved everything about the weekend—hugging new necks, sharing stories, crying together. I connected with beautiful, tender, God-focused women who I look forward to getting to know so much more. These women, these new friends, are still mysteries to me in many ways, like presents still waiting to be unwrapped.

As I was away, though, I also missed the friends I have here, at home. I am surrounded by an amazing community of women from my church who have held me up, loved me, sacrificed for me, and poured out their love for me over years and weeks and the mundane realities of days spent side-by-side, trying to navigate the ins and outs of friendship. I love these women fiercely, and want to love them better.

I am thinking about the friendships I have with women I love—both the tested friendships of the women in my community at home and the new friendships I made this past weekend. All of these women, all of their friendships, point me to Jesus. Jesus, the truest friend. Jesus, the closest friend I have. Because all of these women will fail me at some point, just as I will undoubtedly fail them. But Jesus. Jesus is unfailing in his love and his nearness. And he is simultaneously both types of friends to me, in just the ways I need him to be. He is the one who has walked with me over the years of my life, staying close, sacrificing, pouring his love out daily and hourly. He is also the friend who is always new, the friend who I get to learn more about and unwrap as the sweetest present every morning. There are always new things to get to know about Him, always new questions to ask, new aspects of his heart to uncover.

And this gives me hope—the type of hope we talked about at Hope Spoken. Mountaintop weekends come and go, the intensities of friendships wax and wane. But Jesus. Jesus is the greatest friend, in every sense of the word. He is the friend that all other friendships point to, at their best moments. He is the friend behind every life-giving and loving friendship. His friendship is worth a thousand million others.

In light of being a friend–to women I love and even those I haven’t met yet, I am giving away my Hope Spoken Swag Bag over on my Instagram feed. Click on my Instagram button or find me @annswindell to get the details!

 

Filed Under: Friendship, God
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