Hi guys! It’s Monday and that means it’s time for The Monday Minute (or two)… which has NEVER been only a minute, or even two.
But that’s because there’s so much to chat about!
You’ll notice, in today’s video, I have a guest… Greer Gates!
She interned for me last week and what better way to intern for me than to be part of my video process! Greer is an amazing young lady (she’s home for the summer after completing her first year in college!). You can watch this live video we did last week to learn more about her. And/or you can watch the TEDx talk she did when she was 14 (I told you she is amazing)…
Wow. Right?!
Nothing is quite as encouraging as young people changing the world, right?
*insert clever segue here*
I have been trying all summer to start my “morning pages routine”. Morning Pages looks different for everyone, I imagine. But the idea is you get up in the morning and before you do anything else – you write. I have done it before but I struggle to make it consistent. I just know I feel more centered, less crazed, and just generally happier if I get that time.
For me, it is a mix of vaguely writing out my worries…
(my journal is my calendar and also my to-do list and has no lock… so whatever I write I need to be OK with a Nosey Nellie thumbing through… but personal enough I don’t think I’d ever publish my pages)
… expressing my prayers… writing down notes about anything I’ve read in the Bible (I recently lost the devotional book I was trying to consistently read, so now I am poking around at random). I subscribe to Proverbs 31 Ministries daily devotions via email, so I cracked that open this morning. The focus verse was perfect for what is happening in our world right now:
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:12-13 (NIV)
I got to thinking about the “friends” part of that verse. At first I was like, “Well, right now people need to be loving more than just their friends!”
But in the solitude of the morning… Just me, my notebook, and my rainbow colored pen (topped with a 2-inch hot, pink fuzzy ball with googly eyes on it) I thought of the ripple effect.
If one friend loves her (or his) friend hard, and she is fueled by that act… that friend can love another, and that friend another… And if Facebook has taught me nothing else, it has taught me how very far our friendship connections can reach. Hitherhencetofore – the ripple effect.
I don’t need to name causes or events for us to understand how this might apply to us today, in this world. We all have our opinion and views. I don’t believe we need to deny what we feel is “right” in order to show love and compassion. But we do need to deny ourselves of pushing what we feel.
I am not talking about standing up for what is right. That’s something else.
I am talking about listening and loving and sacrificing opinion in friendship sometimes. Laying down one’s life is almost easier these days than laying down one’s opinion.
Of course it isn’t. But maybe it is.
So.
Today.
Monday.
Love a friend.
Start a ripple effect.
