Love is a choice and sometimes a very hard one. Picture right now someone who is hard to love. Can you see him or her? Can you feel the tightness in your chest and air filling your lungs? Now, imagine if I asked you to show love to that person this week. What would it look like? Hard, huh. Some of you are hyperventilating as you read this!
Showing love is difficult because it requires action on our part. It requires something from us. This is what LOVE WELL is all about. It’s hard, it’s intentional, and it requires sacrifice.
I must give credit to Catherine for introducing these 2Wrds to me. When asked what it meant to her, she told me, “LOVE WELL is an intentional demonstration that is planned, prayed over and brings great delight and awe to another.”
A friend of Catherine’s was going through a very difficult family situation. Because she hurt so deeply for her friend, Catherine wanted to do something meaningful to help. As she spent time with her friend and listened through tears of disappointment, Catherine received an unexpected blessing. Her friend told her, “You have loved us so well.” This phrase stuck and became Catherine’s motto.
To LOVE WELL is to go above and beyond what someone expects. As Catherine put it, “There is a depth in this love that runs deep into the soul.” I love that! It reaches beyond us. It penetrates our deepest longing…to be loved.
Once we learn to LOVE WELL, we begin to see all the ways that others have loved us well. Shortly after my husband and I were married, we came face to face with a very scary situation. Thing 1 and Thing 2 were twenty-six weeks old and less than one pound each when I went into preterm labor. Friends and family members provided meals, notes of encouragement, and endless phone calls. Later, as I spent two weeks in the hospital and eight more weeks on full bed-rest at home, it was these friends and family that sat with me, cried with me, and literally brought in chairs from the nurse’s station just to be with me. I treasure these memories in my soul as I know I was LOVED WELL.
Catherine now teaches this concept to her grandchildren. “Teaching this to grandchildren is so rewarding. Placing the child in another’s shoes, helping them pray for another, brainstorming what could delight the individual, taking time to plan a unique action experience for the other person, all teach the child to be others-centered and outward-focused.”
How can you LOVE WELL this week? Who needs to LOVED WELL by you?
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