There’s something sacred about making bread. The slow rhythm of it. The mess it creates. The way hands move without needing to speak. Bread takes time. It doesn’t rush. It demands warmth and rest, and then more kneading, and more waiting. Maybe that’s why it feels like such an honest metaphor for the kind of love I’ve come to trust—not the performative kind, not the rule-bound kind I once learned in pews from pulpits, but the quiet, enduring kind that shows up with its sleeves rolled up and a willingness to get flour everywhere.
I’ve found that when love is a way of life, community doesn’t always look like a scheduled gathering or a sermon three points deep. It looks like the couch you crash on when the world’s been too loud. It looks like a kitchen that never really closes, where someone’s always willing to put the kettle on or have another cup of coffee. And even if it’s 2 a.m. and nobody knows what day it is anymore, love leans in.
Love in community looks like someone checking that you’ve eaten. Someone texting “you good?” even when they may not be. Someone giving time sacrificially, not because they have to—but because they get to. Because they love you, and that love is real, not ritual.
I used to think spiritual life meant polished shoes and reverent silence. I knew sacred spaces to have stained glass and still air. I knew holiness to come dressed in hierarchy. But now I know better. I’ve seen more of God in living rooms than in sanctuaries. I’ve experienced more communion in a kitchen, drinking from irreverent mugs and eating homemade baked goods than in any formal liturgy.
The holiest ground I’ve stood on in quite some time was the floor of a friend’s house who let me cry without trying to make anything better.
When love is a way of life, not a theological construct, community becomes a refuge instead of a proving ground. It becomes the place where bread is both made and broken in real time—not just as a symbol, but as sustenance. We don’t just remember love. We live it out loud. And we learn to let ourselves be loved in return, even when it’s hard. Even when it feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar.
Because the truth is, receiving love requires trust; not just in the love but in the one offering it. In their sincerity. In their wholeness. In the grace that led them to offer anything at all.
So I’ve stopped looking for the perfect table and started showing up at the one that’s already set. Sometimes the bread is store-bought. Sometimes the conversation trails off into raucous laughter… or silent tears. But it’s all sacred. Every crumb. Every moment of togetherness. Every cup of coffee poured like a blessing on the altar of another long, beautiful, aching day.
In all of life lived in this way, there is love… and it is holy.
Drop your shoulders, friend.
Lower your tongue from the roof of your mouth.
Relax your eyebrows.
Take a deep breath.
Know that I love you.
Know you are enough.
💜💜💜
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