Speak Truth in Love

Insert all the October sentiments here.
My hope has been to bring you more frequent posts, but sometimes life just doesn't allow for it. And life just felt a little too overwhelming for me to come up with words to share with you last month. I found myself searching for the right words, some bit of encouragement, but as I was lacking that in my own life, I just didn't know how to push out and share it with others. You can't pour from an empty cup, right?

I'm thankful to report that things have been a lot better over the course of the last few weeks. I'm being much more intentional about taking care of myself and paying attention to my mental health. Doing things like taking my vitamins, changing some supplements to directly address my brain, exercising, drinking water, etc. etc. (all my vitamins and supplements are linked here). Lots of grown up things happening over here, y'all!

I wanted to share with y'all something I wrote about over on instagram recently, with a little more elaboration:

I think it’s such an amazing thing that we get to walk through this life with people by our side. It’s so cool to think about how as believers, we are connected and get to be a part of one body. Sometimes that feels hard because we don’t always believe exactly the same and our personalities may clash. But because of this one amazing thing we have in common…Jesus…we get to still love each other well.

One of my favorite things I’ve learned in scripture lately as our pastor has been teaching us through Galatians is how Paul was so angry and so passionate about the choices other believers were making, and how he did not hesitate to “call them out”. BUT…He did it in love. He called them “my brethren”. He said they were his beloved friends, and he grouped himself with them even though they weren’t on the same page about things. Even though he was so frustrated with them, his motivation was LOVE. It wasn’t a need to be right or to prove someone else wrong. It wasn’t to belittle them. He loved them enough to stop and point them towards the truth. There was once a time Paul was walking in a lie and needed to be called out. And that probably is the same for you, too. I know it is for me.

I love nothing more than to see women walking this out with one another. I know it’s hard. I’ve not always done it well, and I know I’ll continue to not do it well sometimes. But this was just such a good reminder that there shouldn’t be a reason for us to be at odds with one another. We are on the same team, fighting the same common enemy. And it’s not each other. If the body is at odds, it won’t function well. I am praying for women (myself included) to rise up, to speak truth in love to one another, to celebrate the fact that even though we might not all be BFFs, we do have the greatest thing imaginable in common. And that trumps everything else.

As my pastor says at the end of every Sunday message, "go be the church". Let's go out with Jesus as our primary message. Loving Him, and in turn loving people. Imagine how that could change the world.