Love Demonstrated

At small group on Sunday night, I shared as a prayer request with the other ladies (we separate for part of the time--the guys watch the kids while the gals study a book about being a godly wife; the gals watch the kids while the guys study about being a godly husband). I knew I had a busy, busy week coming up with freelance work on my plate, and my time management has been absolutely rotten lately. So I asked for prayer that I would manage my time well and accomplish the things I need to get done. One of the girls asked if it would be okay for them to ask me about how it was going--to sort of follow up. I was a little surprised but said yes, absolutely. Any accountability is helpful.

Monday I buckled down--set a bunch of ground rules for myself and told Steve about them--and it went really well. I was able to get 9.25 hours of work in! Yesterday wasn't nearly so good, for a variety of reasons I won't get into (some legitimate and some not), but I did still manage 5 hours. And I wasn't so concerned about cramming the hours in because one of the freelance projects I thought would make me crazy-busy looked like it was going to fall through.

Today, I was a total deadbeat all morning. I spent a lot of time randomly surfing the internet and didn't even make the pretense of opening the files for my project. I ate some lunch and told myself I'd get to work right after that--then got distracted again. Suddenly the phone rang.

It was one of the girls from small group. Calling to check up on me. Not in a stern, judgmental, "YOU BETTER BE WORKING HARD" way, but in a "I just wanted to let you know that I've been praying for you and I wanted to see how things were going this week" way. I was totally blown away, and blessed. I confessed to her that I actually hadn't gotten any work done this morning, but that I was just about to settle in and get to it--that her phone call was perfect timing to remind me that I needed to get a move on.

As I hung up the phone, I thought, "You know, there's an unconventional but perfect Valentine's Day example of what love looks like in real life." (Not to mention a simple example of church relationships going deeper--see below post.) This isn't my best friend--she's not someone I've grown close to yet. But she cared enough about me to not just say she'd pray for me, or join in the group prayer for me that night and then forget about it, but to actually take my request to God. She cared enough to take it even further--to call me, to spur me on toward the growth and godliness I said I wanted. If that's not love...I don't know what is.

It meant enough to me that I had to blog about it. But now, I really have to get back to work. At least the files are open now :)