you're worth an eternity of loving, darling.

I just wanna hug everyone tonight.  I just wanna look you in the eyes and say, "Darling, YOU ARE ENOUGH.  YOU MATTER.  YOU ARE WORTH LOVING."  I just wanna love everyone I meet so hard that they stop and ask, "Why do you love people so much?" so I can say, "JESUS."

I don't know, I just want to encourage you today to have conversations with people.  Have conversations with people you've known forever and have conversations with people you've only just met.  Just have conversations.  And by "conversations", I mean listening to what the other has to say and not thinking about what you're going to say next.  It'll be your turn to talk soon enough, goodness gracious.  Take the time to hear people.  There's absolutely no limit to the relationships you will build simply by listening to what is on someone's heart.  How many times have you said to yourself, "If only someone would just listen to me"?  Be that person for others.

Can I ever stress enough how vital loving people is? When you choose to love someone without a second thought of whether they will care or return it, you are saying, "You are enough. You matter. You are worth loving." Please, please, please, don't discredit the importance of sending that message by example. You can tell people they matter all you want (and you should! please, please do), but what really makes them stop and listen is when they see you caring even when you don't have to. It's about how you stick around and love even harder when they keep giving you reasons to give up. It's not about loving when it's easy. It's about loving when all you want to do is say, "But they didn't love me."

Jesus has loved me so hard that I couldn't see past Him to doubt His love. One of the ways He expressed that love was by bringing people into my life who saw past my insecurities and age and silliness and just freaking loved me. That's why I'm so passionate about doing that for others. I desperately want you to see how deeply He loves you, darling.

Now, go love people as hard as you can. They're worth loving, and so are YOU.

contentment with a side of joy, please.

"I am fiercely loved and one of my biggest downfalls is not acknowledging that enough."

I haven't written anything in over a month. Why, you ask (not that you're asking or anything)? Because my heart hasn't been aching deeply. Dangit. Shouldn't I have more to say when my heart isn't hurting? I don't know. Don't ask me. But I'm here again! Yes, I know, you're so excited. I hope you can detect the sarcasm in that statement. Anyway, I'm moving on before I embarrass myself further. Don't worry, I'm not back because my heart is aching deeply. I'm back because it isn't.

Last month, a friend asked me how I was doing and I honestly wasn't sure how to give a short answer to that, so I simply replied with, "That depends on how interested you are in the answer." He assured me that he was interested, so then I actually had to come up with an accurate description of how I was. I'll skip mentioning the negative parts of my life here that I stated because they're irrelevant, but rest assured that I had some stuff going on in my brain that was trying to get me down on myself. But the point I'm trying to reach with all of my 3am jumbled ramblings is the fact that I could honestly tell my friend that I was doing wonderfully. Despite the stuff that was dragging my brain back into that "You're not good enough and you'll never amount to anything" mentality, I could honestly say, "You know, I'm doing wonderfully."

How did I ever manage to get my thick-headed, always negative, selfish little self to that point? Spoiler alert: I sure as heck didn't do anything. It was all Jesus.

My cousin and I were talking one time several months back and she said something that struck a chord in my heart and hasn't stopped bouncing around in my brain ever since. We were talking about how the year had been really emotionally difficult for her and how she managed to get through that and she brought up contentment. She said, "If I could only ever have one of God's blessings, it would be contentment because, without it, nothing would ever be enough for me." Oh, dang. That's it. That's it.

I keep coming back to that. My heart likes to focus on all the things that are not good in my life, but I have to tell my silly heart to shut up and see the GOOD. Because, oh, is there good in my life. Here's a little snippet of what I sent to my friend: "I have friends who truly care about me and show that more than they ever have before, I have parents who invest so deeply in me, and I have Jesus who gives me enough joy and strength to face everything I have to deal with.  I am fiercely loved and one of my biggest downfalls is not acknowledging that enough."

Now! Lest you think I'm here to glorify what I said and how I'm content with my life, lemme get something straight here:  I am possibly the worst ever at acknowledging and appreciating the blessings in my life. For every moment of contentment I have, I spend at least 10 moments wishing for something better and lovelier. So please don't think that I'm trying to put my small moment of appreciating my life's little blessings on a pedestal because I am not. If anyone is worthy of standing on that pedestal, it would be literally anyone but me.

All I know about this contentment thing is that it comes from Jesus. I am anything but an expert, but I do know that it comes only from Jesus and being acutely aware of His relentless love for us. When you give all that yuck in your life over to your sweet Jesus, He will give you a joy that you can't explain. You'll find yourself vainly searching for words to describe how you're doing when an acquaintance asks. Mm, darling, what a beautiful place to be.

But before I end, lemme say one more thing: Your pain does not have to diminish your contentment. You own that pain. Don't push it back down into that part of your heart that you don't let visit. Own it, sweetheart. Don't you dare let your pain take away from your joy. Let it add to your joy by saying, "Here, Jesus. Make this beautiful. It hurts, but it's Yours. Do what You want with it."

Tonight, I'm choosing to let my heart dwell in the beautiful things...and those beautiful things aren't just the flowers and chocolate that happened today, remember. I really hope you'll choose to do the same. It'll change your world, darling.