light pink graphic with a picture of a little girl picking flowers in the background with blue text from post caption about an accelerated course in love

An Accelerated Course in Love

William and Penny, as preschoolers, looking at each other with their arms around each other
William and Penny years ago!

An accelerated course in love—“…every time I recognized the purity of my love for Penny, I was dying to an old part of myself, an old part that thought the only ones worth loving were the ones who could be productive and articulate and considered attractive and successful.”

When I wrote A Good and Perfect Gift over a decade ago, it was already hard to remember back to the person I was before Penny was born. For all parents, and honestly for any of us who truly love other people, we are constantly invited to die to the parts of ourselves that value other people for what we can get out of them instead of for who they actually are.

I hope I would have learned how to value people of all shapes and sizes and abilities and needs and gifts simply as a part of the process of growing up and growing in grace. But I’m thankful that Penny gave us an accelerated course in love.


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