Last night my IV small group went to Krispy Kreme and while there, the typical spontaneous side of me wanted to buy a box of a dozen donuts and deliver them to off-campus friends in honor of Valentine's Day. The not-so-typical side of me wanted to purchase these twelve donuts; this coming from the girl who is too cheap to even offer to rent the Redbox. In a matter of seconds, Sarah Hunt and I decided we were all in, bought the donuts, and ran to the car--dragging one of the freshmen girls, Allison, along. There we were. Living in some parallel universe where I was generous and Sarah was spontaneous. It was silly and fun and something different to do instead of homework on a Monday night.
The first place we went was to Jess and Jen's house, where my (new) friend Kristie was hanging out. We delivered the treats and headed for campus where we creeped on JoGo's study spot in Trinkle before driving across town to Dani and Jordan's house and then giving the rest to Allison's roommate and our apartmentmates. You can just call us the Valentine's Day fairies.
Later that night, I received so many appreciative texts and we were tagged in multiple posts on facebook (sorry for blowin up y'allz newsfeeds). After reading the texts out loud to Sarah I turned to her and said, "Wow. Who knew this would feel so great??" And I meant it.
For most of my life I've hated Valentine's Day--perhaps from the bitterness of always being single when the week came along on the calendar. But love isn't just for romantic relationships. It's for our friends. For our brothers and sisters. For Jesus. (And from Him.)
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love --1 Corinthians 13:13.
I had no idea that people would be so grateful for a little late-night delivery. But the point was that we love them. That we are so thrilled that these people are in our lives. That we hope they'll always be in our lives.
Graduation is less than three months away. Pretty soon we'll all be scattered across the country (and possibly the world). But these relationships will always hold significant places in our hearts. These relationships are ones that we hope will be (mutually) significant in our lives throughout time. We have given these people pieces of us and taken pieces of them, sharing in the goodness and the mystery of love. Forever.
It felt great to celebrate the holiday that I usually dread. It felt great to show the people that I love in a very simple way that I care about them and think about them throughout my day. And it felt great to know that they appreciated our little run-around (as creepy as we probably seemed at the time, especially while we ran around campus with Sarah's car empty and running). They appreciated it because they love us equally.
I am letting my walls down. I am letting people into my life and my thoughts and my heart. I am letting other people love me.
I am progressing since my last entry about it.
And I am loving every second of it.
It is like a breath of fresh air in this otherwise chaotic world. My relationships are becoming meaningful and wonderful. Yes, I still have tiffs with my friends and I don't always react with grace. But I am learning to be honest and confide in people. I am learning to let people love me. I am learning to feel.
We are made for community. We are made to love each other. Romantic relationships aside, Valentine's Day can be a day that you look at all of the amazing people in your life and allow yourself to love them because that love is just as important as any love from a significant other. You can look at how much Jesus loves you and chose to spend today with Him. You can choose to feel and choose to let walls down and choose to be there for others. Deliver donuts or Valentine's Day cards or hugs or tears or a simple statement of "I love you."
We love because he first loved us. --1 John 4:19
We are mirrors; made to reflect the love that He gives us to others. Made to share in joy and love and pain and trials.
Made to do life together.
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