Love, Tuesday... and a GIVEAWAY
Love is a many splendored thing!
We are continuing in our theme of LOVE this month and since we just missed Valentine’s Day by a couple days, we wanted to offer you a chance to win a fun GIVEAWAY we are doing this week on IG! You’ll need to go on over to our Instagram account @artandfaithcreative and follow the directions to enter. We will be announcing the winner Friday afternoon… so happy entering!!
For this week on Love, Tuesday I thought I’d take a little time on this post to touch on the theme of love in another fun way.
Last week I went a bit deep and shared about the different types of love in the Bible and a story about how I got that confused as a young woman.
This week I’d like to lighten the mood a little and share more about the “philia” love; that is… the brotherly/sisterly type of love.
We’re going through Hebrews in church and last Sunday our pastor talked about this kind of love as we are going through Hebrews 13.
“Let brotherly love continue…” Hebrews 13:1
This is the type of love that unites believers and I especially love how Jesus does this with women. In our experience with our retreats, this has been so beautifully evident. I know that’s not always the case with women. I understand our “species” can be a little catty and competitive. It’s been something I have wanted to change for many years and I believe it may be why the Lord gave me this calling to gather women. So I believe God is working to change that, to unite us in a common goal, and I have seen that in these last few years first hand.
As you may know, we started hosting our retreats in Bellagio, Italy and Paris, France in 2012. They were always lovely and wonderful, I truly mean that, but it wasn’t until I realized the Lord was calling me to make them more about Him, (through art, beauty and our shared faith) that this type of “philia” love really started showing up.
There’s just something about being together with other women who share the same faith that bonds us instantly! You’re thousands of miles away from home, you’re so excited to be in Italy (or France or Belgium) and the fact that even though you don’t know these women, you KNOW these women beside you share a love of Jesus… well it just makes you feel AT HOME. (Hopefully my daughters and I make you feel at home too) Whereas a normal retreat may take a few days for the women to connect and feel a bond; it’s been amazing to see how the Lord connects the women almost instantly now that the focus of our retreats is on the Lord!
And we need that…
We need connection. We were made for it! God designed the idea of gathering and it is the deep rooted core of our WHY. (Read Hebrews 1-:24-25)
That’s why I’m so humbled by all of you that join us and it’s also why I’m so emotional at our retreats. I see how God is moving in each of our lives during these retreats and bringing the women together for His purposes. And they are many! We don’t always understand the ways of God, but we can see how He is working during these weeks together with women who come from all over the world. I LOVE that we get to witness a little of His ways and hopefully we are honoring Him in the process.
Lord willing that will be something we can get back to very soon…
I quoted a movie title at the top: “Love is a many splendored thing.” I’ve never seen the movie, but the quote came to mind when I was thinking about this blog post and our women’s retreats. I think it’s because love is multi-faceted; meaning there are so many ways to experience the love God has for us. Isn’t that so exciting!?! We know that God designed love and He created love from the very beginning of time. So to understand how to love like He wants us to, I think it encompasses many different ways, which make love like a multi-faceted gem.
Here are a couple verses that can guide us and stretch us as we learn to love better and in new ways:
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8
“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:18
As women, we need to be this love for our families, our friends, our neighbors and those we may only know online. We need a heart change that:
~ LOVES deeply
~ LOVES in action and truth
I know these aren’t always easy to emulate, but it’s what I’ve been thinking a lot about during these politicized moments we are living in. I’ve shared my heart in past posts on this subject, so you can go read them if you feel lead. I just think for us as women, to come together and CHOOSE to do what God’s heart is for us is extremely important in these days.
~ We need to get past hurts
~ We need to let love cover mistakes
~ We need to not only speak in love and truth, but also live it out
We know it can be so beautiful when we try to live this way! And it says to a hurting world that needs true love: YOU are welcome, YOU are invited to join in!
(by the way, these three women didn’t know each other before this retreat started and now they are friends for life)
The world we live in is hard. People are hurting, people are going through difficult things. We live in a world that wants to shut you down. This “cancel culture” idea that makes people feel like they don’t matter anymore if they don’t align with the current philosophy is alienating so many people. We need to be counter cultural and share the love of Jesus that says this:
“Love must be sincere. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:9-10
When I was preparing to host our retreats for 2020, the Lord gave me the theme of “Healing” and at the time I really didn’t understand why. I’m not a counselor or trained in art therapy. I don’t have any education remotely close to helping “heal” others. So this was way out of my wheelhouse. But, I said yes to this theme then and even though 2020 didn’t happen, I know I need to say yes to this theme still, and see what He wants us to explore in our 2021 retreats in this area. This is probably a theme more relevant today than I ever imagined it would be… but God knew. So we are praying, preparing and getting ready to see how the Lord will work in the lives of the women who join us this year as things start opening up again and we are allowed to gather again!
Let’s Love in action and truth…
And let’s gather near and far and work on this together friends!
Darn it, I wasn’t going to go deep this week, but it seems that I have! Maybe next week all I’ll do is share some fun things about love, like my favorite travel destinations or favorite art supplies.
Don’t forget to go on over to our IG and enter to win all those lovely items from us and Daily Grace Co!!
See you on Friday to announce the winner!
Hugs to all,
Laura McCollough