I know I have shared a few resources with y’all lately- firing up this ole blog again, the Modeled by the Maker Cohort, and even a tiktok account -but this next one is for everyone: a podcast. The first spark for a podcast came last November and God spent the last six months stoking it in me through my Bible reading and through my community. Despite many starts and stops since then, I am overjoyed to share that it is officially happening!  If all goes as planned, which is hard to be 100% sure of in a pandemic world, then we are launching the Love Letters Podcast on Monday, June 1st!

Why a podcast?

I must admit I hadn’t engaged with podcasts much before 2019. I am a simple girl and only stopped listening to cds a couple years ago, so adding another form of social media and absorbing even more information came as a slow decision. Of course, once I connected with Craig Groeschel’s, Jennie Allen’s, The Grove’s, and Dr. Stefanie Reinold’s podcasts, I was hooked. What a treat to make the most of my time and stimulate my mind while I do menial tasks around the house. What a gift to have motivation keep me going in the gym instead of trudging through workouts alone. And they even made sitting in traffic less bothersome.

I love the platform now and, even though I haven’t listened much during the shelter-in-place orders because I was/am heavily invested in my writing, it has helped me feel less isolated when my questions or dreams seem too wild to go after.

Why love?

I have always been in love with the idea of love, but I wasn’t always good at it. And I’m not great at it now, but I get it. After learning that true love is putting others before yourself, it makes sense why people love the feeling of love more than taking action in love. The feeling of love is sometimes fun to chase but, if we’re honest, can end with us flat on our face; the action of love is a hundred times tougher race, but the journey always ends in a space richer and more meaningful than any other place.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

When we focus our desires on the feeling of love, we are constantly chasing a fleeting moment- the golden snitch, the elusive carrot, perhaps our ideal weight. When we focus our desires on putting others before ourselves, we are constantly surprised by priceless moments of grace. God’s nature is to speak the truth in love to us and we reflect Him by speaking His truth in love to each other. If we do not know what love is, then we aren’t truly loving anyone.

Why letters?

The apostle Paul wrote letters and sent them out to an unbelieving world. His letters changed lives then, and his letters in God’s love story change our lives now. We want to celebrate the changing through the telling of these lives.

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

The podcast is more than a declaration of a celebration. We hope to also raise voices to the evidence that God is real through the proof in our lives. You can argue historical data and carbon dating and artifacts until you’re…Lazarus. Or you can open your eyes to the living, breathing proof that God is real and is still in the business of raising the dead to life in us, the Church. The miracles He performs by melting our hearts of stone, sealing up our severed wounds, healing up our physical and emotional addictions, and bringing people in the fold of his loving arms that the world has kicked out and kept out- these are the things we are going to talk about, the love letters we will tell through our lives. And we, my guests and me, hope you will join us!

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