Day 4 and a half

it will be 365 posts.
not necessarily 365 days.

agape is hard, especially when you are still learning to love yourself
*cue music*
also, internet late at night leads to no sleep, and believe me, sleep is important for agape.

Day 4

will be missing as I thought not turning on my computer would help me sleep last night. It didn't. See, I haven't been sleeping well here at all actually. Maybe falling asleep about 1am? Prayer is 730 and running is 7:15. I got to prayer today. But with a giant lack of sleep, i learned agape is definitely a choice.
and I continue to make that choice.
xoxo

Day 3

Sorry for the delay, folks, I’m at my Church Weekend and the internet was spotty, but as you can see, I’m here and ready to report.

*Cocky, ironic, yet sincere salute*

How did I agape today?

Glad you asked. ;)

Today’s agape was quiet. Today’s intentional agape was quiet. A woman here from my church is going through a lot and I asked her questions and let her talk. This may seem like common decency to some of you, but it’s a fear of mine. When I was younger, other people’s pain became my pain. I wasn’t judging or fearful, I was tired. I know what it’s like to bear a load alone and I thought by making their pain my pain, I was helping.
Maybe it did, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I would run from painful situations and not deal with them. So today, I faced my fear and just listened. It was like walking with a friend, rather than trying to carry her. Remarkably, this had never occurred to me. I was always trying to go “above and beyond” and some nights it really is a gentle hand squeeze that is all that is needed.

I clarified earlier about today’s intentional agape because today was a blessing. I was happy on the bus, smiling at people. I was happy chatting to some 20 year old who got me to buy paintball passes. It’s a stellar deal, and I won (if I ever go paintballing – and I want to!) and he won (made his sale) and we won with the banter and the chat. It was lovely. Then I was kind to the clerk at the ticket booth because all the machines had malfunctioned and the dude standing behind me needed to back down. I firmly gave him the “back off” look and took my time with the clerk and spoke kindly and hopefully encouragingly.

I was happy and I just spent about 30 minutes in prayer. Because if one is going to give it out, one must fill up on the Heavenly Goodness.

Truth.

So, I’m knackered, mates. And I wish you good nights and happy days :)

Day 2

The reason this blog was started yesterday was because of a situation that arose that I felt really terrible about. The repercussions of that took place today.

Knowing that, it made it both easier and harder to love on people. Harder, personally, because when you have tears in your eyes, people try to take care of you. Easier because it gave me something to focus on besides "holy crap i'm going to get fired."

I'm not fired. Praises to God.

However, this 365 days of Agape is definitely going to be helpful in my moving forward at work.

It also made me think about applying agape to myself and the question "can i agape on other people if i dont agape myself?" i'm sure there will be more on that in the future.

Because the real point that I have to admit is that I have been operating under the Sunday School definition of agape, and that ain't right. I need to know the Greek, application, hermeneutic - all the responsible, biblical stuff so I'm not just throwing words around. So, over the course of my Church retreat, I intend to ask some questions. Questions that lead to books which leads to answers which lead to knowledge, which leads to application.

I do like getting my agape on. That I have to report back to you. That it's making me a better person. Today, to agape, I tried to just listen, to actively and actually listen and honestly respond.
I'm gonna do that again tomorrow.
Peace and love.

Day 1

Bloody Hell.

Not the best way to start a blog on being loving to everyone you come across, but the point of this blog is to grow, so lets have a very specific point to start from.

Bloody fricken hell.

I'm a 28 year old American in London. I came here to be with my husband. We got married January 27th, I got here April 27th and he left me June 9th. I couldn't leave the country, didn't want to, so I've stayed here in London. God has blessed me with affordable housing, the ability to understand the bus system (usually) and a job that pays for most of it.
God has blessed me with the opportunity to learn about budgeting.
There is a church just around the corner that I attend and it is very healing. A lot of good has been happening. I even recently returned from Ireland where I climbed a mountain and got to hang out and laugh with God.  It was amazing.
Today I saw a clip from Today about a year living as a biblical woman  (http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/49501889#49501889) and it inspired me to get biblical. I rely constantly on God's forgiveness and love and as a Christian, one of my responsibilities is to reflect it. Ok, God. Challenge Accepted.

I fell flat on my flip flops today, ladies and gents.

There's a 20 year old at my job. He's very nice, very smart, very posh. But he gets under my skin. And then I re-engage and I'm not being an adult in the situation, and that's definitely something I have to work on. So I'm very thankful to find such a glaringly obvious flaw in myself and have something to work on (don't engage and move forward). However, I was definitively less than agape toward him

It makes me think of climbing the mountain. I wanted to go to this little cove that was covered in moss with a wee waterfall, very picturesque. Well, the water was a factor. The water, which i was following up to the rock face, was the reason I wiped out down the hill/mountain/cliff face and was covered in mud and someone on the path started laughing. Was it at me? I don't know. Possibly. But this is my mountain. My picturesque cove. My desire. So I got my mud-covered butt(literally) up and tried again. And I got to the cove. I took photos and I cheered. And I kept going up. I saw deer and purple flowers. I played hide-and-seek with the sun past a ridge of trees.

So I sucked at agape today. I, as we all do, fell short of the glory of God. And tomorrow I am going to try again. Because we are forgiven and walking in Victory. And it's the right thing to do. And I want to get better at this!

So thank you, whoever you are, for being my accountability buddy. For giving me an outlet and a record. For encouraging me. And thanks to Katey Porter for the idea of blogging. Te gusta and Te Amo, sweet thing!
:)

Cheers, y'all. Here we go.