Thank goodness I am a love warrior.

This week has been hard, and I’ve been choosing love. Even as I’ve felt despair, I’ve looked for love—and I’ve found it, every time.

My focus for this #thankyouthursday is a phrase, that comes from a book, that comes from a person for whom I’m profoundly grateful.

I first discovered her when I worked in publishing—my friend is her editor, which is how I got hooked up this spring with an advance copy of the book I’m about to praise.

I wanted to write about the book as soon as I finished it in April (in one sitting), but I figured it’d help the author more if I waited till closer to publication.

It comes out in early September, so I wasn’t planning to gush until August.*  But since this woman and everything she stands for have been my shield all week, it seems the time for proclamations is now:

I AM GRATEFUL FOR LOVE WARRIORS!

Love Warrior for the win. Thank you Glennon Doyle Melton.

A Love Warrior is someone who does not give up when heartache hits, even if she feels like giving up. (And, for that matter, even if she temporarily briefly actually does give up, maybe for a short little while, just until she gets her bearings back.)

A Love Warrior figures out there is too much goodness not to fight for it and she uses her voice to say so.

A Love Warrior always wins, because it is not possible to lose when you know for sure you’re not alone, that the path you’re traveling is thick with other people also aiming to be brave and kind and good. To be love.

I am so grateful to Glennon Doyle Melton, for her willingness to feel her pain and to push for something better, for her need to confess and transform and share.

I could go on for pages about why this woman and her words are important to me, and I hope another time I will.* But for right now, it’s enough for me to be thankful for a phrase, and to tell you that ”love warriors” are everywhere (including in the mirror).

Love > fear,

Christina

 

 

p.s. One reason this week has been hard is that mass shootings really put a damper on things. But as I realized when I went to the Stonewall Inn on Monday night, and as Glennon always says: LOVE WINS.

*UPDATE: When Love Warrior came out in September, it immediately hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and was named an Oprah’s Book Club Pick and I did indeed gush all about it in an enthusiastic follow-up post.