I started doing polls on my Instagram story, maybe three or four a day. I have about 1,700 followers and I realized I have an opportunity to see, validate and love every one of them, or at least try to so I started doing the polls. I ask simple questions, expanding to some that go a little deeper. For extra context for those of you that haven’t found your way over to my page, one polls was, “Would you say you have been in love, or would you say you are not sure what love is, too simpler questions like, “Do you day dream about mountains or beaches?” Hundreds on hundreds took to the polls and answered my questions. The deeper why or the reason there’s not a whole blog post behind this new rhythm may have crossed your mind while scanning over the first couple of sentences I’m sure. Well, the why is simple yet complex all wrapped in a greater message the Lord has revealed to me, you see it’s not whether everyone agrees with what my opinion is, it’s about providing a simple way to validate different people and different thought processes through simplistic motivation to actually get to know the souls behind each and every phone screen.
It gets strangers to engage with each other, exist together and hear each other during a time of brokenness division going around all around us. I started asking myself recently what kind of woman I want to be and the same theme kept coming to mind, simple hearted.
I want to constantly seek out the simple ways to love people. I desire to find the simplistic beauty in everything, no matter how dark or ugly something may seem. I want to be a woman, a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a wife, and a mother who’s goal is to bring out the beauty in everyone and everything that others count out or overlook, ya know the simple beauty. Kind of like the way a person stands in a crowded bar but their eyes trace each and every face until their gaze meets another’s who they know, and you get to watch their face turn from searching to safety, you get to see all their attention on one thing even when the world around them is so chaotic. Simple.
I want to be a woman of allegiance and inclusion. I want to set down my judgement, and welcome every person I possibly can into my heart if it means one less person feels alone, and one more person feels heard and seen. I think judgment comes a little too easy to some, and I am by no means attempting to place a bubble around a group of people when I say the following statement, it comes from experience and testimony, but if it rubs you the wrong way, I invite you to sit at my table, always.
There is no such thing as righteous judgement. Let God judge and let your heart love everyone, always. Followers of God don’t have a condemnation card in their back pocket that is always in play. We are asked to love like He loves us. Can you cast the first stone, my guy? I’m not saying anything that goes against scripture when I ask you to set a seat at your table for someone you disagree with, or someone who sins far more than you think you do. I’m simply asking you, like I am asking myself to be an extension of His hand and His heart.
So, what is stopping you from loving and choosing God’s children you don’t understand, what is allowing you to look down on those who’s lifestyle you don’t agree with, what is giving you the green light to exile those who choose who they want to love. The King of Kings asks us to love everyone, to accept everyone.
I don’t know, I just want to be a woman that welcomes everyone at my table, even if it’s overcrowded and the food is running low, I want to welcome whoever wants to sit the way the Lord has welcomed me at His table when I wasn’t worthy of it. I want to be the woman God has called me to be. Posting polls doesn’t mean I’m getting it all right or am doing it perfectly day in and day out. It just means I’m starting. Starting to understand how to simply see people, hear simply and simply see names of those I’m called to love. I’m learning how to use my intentionally simple heart to love extravagantly.
With His Love,
Kenz
