Loving people is a work of art
014 | a moodboard for your week
My cousin just got married. She didn’t have a traditional bridal party. Instead, it was just she and her man up at the altar, and she dubbed me her “unofficial official maid of honor.” At some point during the wedding-planning process she mentioned wanting a bachelorette but wasn’t sure who to invite. She also teased the idea of a girl’s weekend between us, lamenting that it was too late to plan this.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, my wheels were turning. What if we did pull off this desired vision of a bachelorette? Images of traditional bachelorette parties immediately surged through my brain, and I just as quickly shut the idea down. None of it felt real to our friendship and cousinhood. Instead it felt like a stale, unfamiliar concept that one does simply for the charade and expectation of it all (yes, I have hot takes about modern weddings and the fanfare that accompanies them, but that’s a story for another day). Well, never mind then, no bachelorette would happen.
But then, this is where the Holy Spirit stepped in. You see, He loves celebrating people. He’s the best at it, really, and I often get the sense that He’s itching to do it through us in a million little ways here on earth. So somewhere in here He whispered to not give up on the idea of loving my cousin well.
First, the realization
There’s a verse in 1 John that’s been blowing my mind ever since I read it. It says,
“Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”
I used to think this verse applied only to super-spiritual stuff like serving people and loving sacrificially—which, obviously, it does. But when I read it anew a few months ago I was struck with this realization:
The verse uses the word expression. Expression is unique to each one of us. We express love differently and uniquely. When this verse prompts us to let God’s love be brought to full expression, I can’t help but think He wants his love to seep out of every fiber of our being in all the specific ways we do and enjoy life.
I then realized expressing love invites creativity into that expression, and creativity is a form of expression. With that, here was my resounding epiphany:
Creativity is letting God’s love be brought to full expression in us.
And, quite simply, loving people is art.
What if this subtle prompting to plan a girl’s weekend for my cousin was quite simply letting God’s love for my cousin and my love for her be brought to full expression through me?
I was all in.
Step 1: The Tease. Aka, the Invitation
Invitations are essential to stirring excitement. I am the hugest believer that you must do things in a proper order to stir the maximum potential anticipation possible when loving people well. And that involves the tease.
A “tease” is simply a subtle or not-so-subtle release of a limited amount of information about the experience or gift or surprise ahead that is strategically planned to prepare the participant for what’s ahead. There is a simple satisfaction in knowing hints have been dropped even if the full experience hasn’t been revealed yet. If I was an author, I’d call it a foreshadowing. If I was God, I’d call it prophecy. And if I was a party-planner, I’d call it the invitation.
Of course, an invitation can range from medium-subtle to blatantly obvious. Sometimes it throws the door wide open to what is ahead—“Surprise, a party for you!”—and sometimes it is more veiled—“Meet here at 6 pm and wear a fancy dress! More details to come!”
This girl’s weekend invite fell into the veiled-invitation category. As my cousin put it, “You gave me just enough information to know how to prepare and yet trust you completely on the rest.” And yes, the invitation was an actual invitation. Designed, printed, and, um, delivered.
Because yes, delivering this invitation is a work of art, too. Here are my rules for this:
If your invitation comes in the form of the text, at the very least send it with one of those text effects like invisible ink or fireworks or something of the sort. Can also be a normal text accompanied by gifs. The goal is to make this feel out-of-the-ordinary.
If your invitation can be printed, do so. Based on potentially an hour of research, I found the easiest way to send a last-minute invitation if you are desperately in need of going this route and yet on a time constraint is to send it to the nearest FedEx in the vicinity of your recipient and make them go pick it up. Maybe design it on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper and order it to be cut in half. Just some thoughts from someone who spent way too long on her laptop trying to find another option to deliver in under 24 hours.
An invitation can also just be a card to accompany your work of art or gift, or some words or action that expresses the intention or significance of the expression ahead.
Consider carefully how much information you release in this invitation and what will delight the recipient most. This is totally up to you and your style, but just think: mystery, frills, and bells and whistles are all SO fun. You have a lot of routes you can go. Remember, this is art—the art of loving people well.
Step 2: Preparing the work of art, aka your expression
In favor of time, I’ll keep this step quite simple. Let God’s love come to full expression in you, whatever that looks like. Do you want to plan a weekend excursion like I did? Then do so! Will you bake bread and share it with some friends? Have the most fun packaging it in wax paper and ribbon or a Dollar Store folded tea towel! Will you give a friend a ride to the airport and share a good conversation while you’re at it? From one who’s been on the receiving end of this gift, thank you—this love is quite tangible. Will you give a spontaneous gift to a coworker during a rough week? Spoiler alert, gifts aren’t just limited to birthdays! Keep some blank cards, ribbons, tape, and scissors in your car for when this inclination arrives! Will you pick up coffee for a friend for the hard, long day ahead? Send a text checking in on someone? Ask the deep, probing, “I see you and I’m here for you” question that is worded in your own unique way? Make dinner for a family at church that doesn’t have a meal train arranged but is going through something hard? Whatever it is, there are endless opportunities for a truly full expression. Just take a peek at the souls right in front of you and consider who is the one person the Holy Spirit is just itching to love through you today.
For me, my full expression looked like an elaborate girls’ weekend complete with an Airbnb, itinerary, and packing list. It involved foodie adventures, a hot tub, and deep conversations. Mountain air and multiple-hour car drives to get there and leaving work early and arriving back late Sunday night. A work of art. A full expression. And entirely worth it.
Step 3: Let art be art
You can’t decide how art moves people.
My cousin and I experience the world very differently. We’ve lived different stories and have different emotional responses to different things. Going into this weekend, I knew some things were going to touch her deeply and some things might prove more for my own enjoyment. And I was totally okay with that. For me, there was great joy in the making, the preparing. And in the moment of presenting it to her, my greatest joy came from her most raw, authentic responses rather than the ones I imagined receiving. This is the essence of art. We create, then release. What lies beyond is between the art and the viewer.
Here is a little reflection of watching her respond to all this art of expression:
When I spent an exorbitant amount of hours deciding between hotels, airbnbs, and any other number of lodging to find what felt like a right choice (art risked?): “I love lofts. Did you know that when you chose this Airbnb?”
When I made too much food the first night and sent her home with the untouched cheese board (art wasted?): “I think he [her fiancé] added a new favorite cheese to his list—the goat cheese from your cheese board!”
When we pivoted from the planned breakfast spot I had researched beforehand to a Cuban cafe we chose in a rushed 2-minute research session by our cars after locking up the Airbnb (art unplanned?): “This was the best meal of the trip. Oh wait, last night was pretty good. Actually, last night was the best, and this is next. I’m so glad we found this spot.”
a note for the artists, weary in their expression:
Sometimes we love people and it doesn’t go according to plan. Do you ever feel that way? That your art, however beautiful it seemed to you, didn’t quite touch them in the way you hoped. Or maybe it even felt entirely unseen. Is art art if there was only one beholder?
This realization can be hard to swallow and can be discouraging as you try to envision how to approach potential art ahead.
In those moments, know that there is a viewer who always finds your art most precious to Him. One day we will see the gallery of His love made tangible through us, and it will exist in the form of the tapestry He is weaving of all our little and big moments of his love made manifest in us. Remember: He is a master weaver, and beauty always finds a way into His hands to make much of what it is intended for in the first place. Rest assured that love is well worth the work of art.
Your Invitation
So what shall we do? What would it look like for Jesus’s love to be brought to full expression in you?
I am certain there is a work of art in you just waiting to be made tangible. Lean into the Holy Spirit’s lead on this one. I’m quite sure this is one of His favorite things to be a part of.
To end, I’d like to turn to a call I had with my cousin some weeks after our trip. She sighed over the phone, “I want to make a welcome basket for my friend coming to the wedding. I just love making people feel welcome.” I smiled, thinking of how she herself had welcomed me to the Airbnb with an elaborate display of gifts. The gesture was mutual. Art breeds art. It is good for our very souls.