We’ve reached the final week of Advent — and this week’s theme is love.
Not the romanticized, movie-script version. Not love as performance or perfection. But the kind of love that shows up as presence. As tenderness. As truth-telling. As forgiveness. As boundaries. As belonging.
This year has taught me something important: love is not something we earn by performing our way into worthiness. In Jesus, we’re already beloved. Jesus’s love is what steadies us and calls us by name. It gently brings us home to who we already are. Love is what rises in us when we finally come home to ourselves. When we stop striving and start listening. When we allow ourselves to be known.
Advent ends with this reminder: love has been here the whole time. Walking us through every season. Holding us steady in joy and sorrow alike.
The invitation now? To receive Jesus’s love. To reflect it. And to carry it forward into whatever comes next.
I love this poem called “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott:
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirrorand each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved youall your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.Sit. Feast on your life.
My invitation to you is to light a candle — whatever you have, wherever you are — and sit with it quietly for one minute. Then, put your hands over your heart and imagine Jesus looking at you with a tenderness deeper than anything you’ve ever been offered. Perhaps ask: “Jesus, what are you inviting me into with your love?” Notice what rises up. What is the love of Christ inviting you into as this year comes to a close?
The love of Jesus never asks you to pretend. So just come as you are with your hands open to the possibility of His love. May you feel wrapped in the love of Jesus.
This season, I created an Advent Guide for my Substack community with rituals, blessings, poems, readings, and journal prompts.
If you’d like access to my full Advent Guide: Gathering the Light – A December Journey of Hope, Peace, Joy & Love, click here to subscribe.
This Advent Guide is not a checklist, a Bible study, or a rigid plan. It’s a companion for December —and not just through December, but whenever you need a moment of grounding and return.
Each week includes:
- A weekly reflection to help you slow down and notice your life with tenderness.
- A poem chosen to stir something true and steady inside you.
- A simple ritual you can do at home — nothing elaborate, just small sacred practices for real women with real weeks.
- A meditation to anchor your heart in the Advent theme of Hope, Peace, Joy, or Love.
- A spiritual reading or blessing (written in a liturgical, nourishing style) to speak light over your days.
- Optional journal prompts for when you want to go a little deeper — gentle, not demanding.
