I’m writing this blog very late in the evening (12:26pm to be exact), which is much too late to be writing for a morning person like me. I started yawning at 7:30pm when I went to see a movie with one of my friends tonight. I specifically remember yawning because I recall her scolding me saying, “This was your idea—don’t fall asleep.”

I couldn’t have fallen asleep. It was the best movie I’ve ever watched.

**Side note: I tend to be a tiny bit of an exaggerator. But I deeply, genuinely mean everything I exaggerate in the present moment I am exaggerating... Carrying on…

“The Theory of Everything”

Beautiful, beautiful movie. I mean, beautiful. I wept from scene one to the closing credits.

In fact—you should go to your iTunes or Spotify (right now) and click on the Johann Johannsson’s Motion Picture Soundtrack because it will really set the mood for what I am about to write.

Got it playing? Lovely, right?? I know...

Now, you’ll need to read the remainder of this blog with a British-English accent. Mostly because everything just sounds better with a British accent (especially when it is in the voice of Felicity Jones—who is surely my designated #wcw for the next several weeks. WCW means: “Woman Crush Wednesday”, Mom – FYI – for your information).

I’m up late pondering the power of love. I love, love. I loved the love they portrayed in this movie. It wasn't the typical chick-flick, superficial, surface-deep kind of love we're used to seeing in Hallmark holiday specials. No, this was the real-deal, unwavering, honest to goodness, "til death do us part" kind.

I drove home, heart full, thankful for a love like this...

2 Timothy 2:11-13 “If we die with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure hardship, we will reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will deny us. If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful for He cannot deny who He is.”

The last line in that verse always gets me. You almost expect this verse to end by saying, “If we are unfaithful, well of course He won’t have to hold up to His end of the bargain because you broke your promise, you idiot."

But it doesn’t say that. Not at all. He can’t be anything but faithful because that is who. He. Is. He is love. You can’t be anything but love when you are indeed, love itself (1 John 4:7-8).

I want to be love too. Obviously, the incredibly flawed, always messing up and picking up the pieces version—but I really want to try to be as much like love as I can be.

My Grandpa Harald was the greatest at loving people. He passed away a few weeks ago, and I miss him a lot. He was the type of man who lit up every room he was in. Charming, charismatic, lovable. He made every person he talked to feel as though they were the most important person in the world. He would always say, “I don’t know any strangers—a stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.”

He wanted my brother-in-law to read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 at his funeral...

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up. Never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”

He would always insist that he wasn’t very good at loving the way the verse instructs us to—but at 97 years old, he was still working at it (doing very well in my opinion) every single day.

There will always be something in that verse that we can work on being better at. None of us will ever love perfectly—but I suppose that is what makes God’s love so incredibly wonderful, after all. It’s unachievable, yet freely given. What a mystery.

I'm moving to India (in two weeks) and someone told me, the other day, that they were proud of me for “putting my life on hold for a year” in order to work for a humanitarian organization overseas. I was humbled, and understood what they were meaning in the kindest way, but it made me think...

I don’t want to put my life on “hold.” Nothing is stopping or slowing down. I don’t want to think that at the end of this year, I’ll give myself a pat on the back for doing a “good deed” and then come back to everything as normal. I want my “every day” to be lived out in loving and serving others to the best of my ability—no matter what job, city, or zip code that may lead me to.

I think, as followers of the God who calls himself LOVE, we should exemplify “love” better than anyone else in the world. I often wonder if that’s why my Grandfather tried to live out the verse in 1 Corinthians – because I believe he understood the power of love and lived it out better than he ever gave himself credit for.

And I hope I (we) will do the same.

Love always,

Amy