Dear Kaleid Ladies,
Amazing…it is Christmas week already! How are you? We hope that your preparations are smooth, your creative juices are flowing, and that you are able to find soul rest on this fourth Sunday of Advent.
Hope
Peace
Joy
Love
These are the soul-filling words of Advent that make space in our heart for the arrival of the Savior. We wait in hope. We watch in peace. We discover joy in our wonder.
And today, we love.
To love is to be strong. To love is to be vulnerable. Love is the most beautiful paradox, embodied in Jesus.
Love is the desire of every heart and the only force in the world that drives out all fear. Love is God’s very nature, and it is your birthright as God’s God’s daughter.
How do we lean into love this Christmas?
To grow in love is to grow in our willingness to witness and to be witnessed. Love calls us out of our hiding places and invites us to trust. Love asks us to lay down our defenses and to engage relationship. Love invites us to attend to others wholeheartedly, even when we sense that most of their heart is hidden by fear or shame.
To receive love, we must be willing to be seen…to be witnessed by the ones who love us. By the One who loves us.
To give love, we must be willing to see…to witness another and to honor their tender places of hurt, difference, and defense.
These witnessing exchanges are risky because we are human. But Jesus came to show us how to love—how to be human in the sacred safety of God’s love so that we can give and receive love with our hearts and our eyes wide open.
May you know the Advent gift of love this week.
May you sense that you are seen and may you have eyes to see others.
And may your fear resolve into trust.
Merry (early) Christmas to you, friend! We offer you this gift of song by Matt Maher. His song Love Has Come offers an anthem of trust as we wait for Love to come again into our hearts this Christmas.
Gratefully,
The Kaleid Team