Love

This year, I'm going to embark on the One Word journey. My word:

love.

I've been reading about the One Word project for a lot of 2011, and it's been amazing to see women pore over a word and it's meanings and implications in their life. It's something I want to be a part of.

When I first thought of using the word "love" as my one word for 2012, I felt like it might be a cop-out. Everyone wants more love in their life. Love is such a common, over-used word. We say we love things, places, ideas. We "love" a lot. But I think a lot of the time we love from a half-hearted place. We say we love something or someone and we think that is enough, just to say it.

The dictionary definitions of the word love do not satisfy me. They are not what I'm looking for this year on my journey. What I want is to find real, deep, vulnerable, sacrificial, agape love. Here are some of my first thoughts on my word:

"I want love to be a part of me. I want it to permeate me. I want You to shine through me. I'm so bad at love. It's so easy to forget people, to brush them off, to want to get away. What does it look like to love people? What does it look like on a daily, mundane, practical basis? I don't know, and that's why love is my One Word this year. I want it. I want to explore it, learn it, feel it, know it, become it. I want love. Teach me, Lord. Show me. If I learn love, what will my life look like? How will my words sound? Where will my steps lead? Who will I meet and how will I treat them? What kind of relationships and friendships will I be a part of? How will love change me?"

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{in this life, we cannot do great things. we can only do small things with great love} -mother teresa

{love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star} - e.e. cummings

{love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within} -james a. baldwin

{love rules his kingdom without a sword}