Love, love, love

Valentines is in the air. Everywhere, advertising abounds for this holiday that celebrates love. I'll confess....I've never been a big Valentine's celebrate-r. Odd, because I love celebrating. I love making a big deal about little things and so enjoy an excuse to bake something sweet. But Valentine's Day has always passed me by with little thought. This year, it's different. I realize, this thing we're all taking a day to celebrate is awesome. Love. What's better than love?

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. (1 John 3:16). This packs so much punch in my heart. Who doesn't want to be loved, to feel love? I've been on a search for this since I was born. You too? Wanting to be approved of and doted on by our parents, celebrated by our friends and family, and have our hearts skip a beat by that special someone? So much of myself has been poured out in searching for, and finding, love. Yet, sadly, I was looking in all the wrong places for so long. I sought pleasing people around me, and diving from relationship to relationship, desperately trying to hang on to them and make them work...just to have that feeling of being loved, even if only for a moment. Oh, but what an empty life I led! Grueling, tiresome, and ultimately, lonely were the ways I would describe it. And then, there was this: "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." Yes. He did. God is love. He showed love. God was what my heart longed for, yet I didn't know. I didn't need to cling to perfectionism or awful relationships to feel loved. I needed to know God, this Jesus that gave his life for me. He has rescued me from the painful searches of throwing myself into things that will never satisfy my heart. He is it. 

 So we're celebrating this year. The hubs and I already got dressed up and attended a "Valentine's Banquet" Sunday night at our church, which was so fun (and he was so handsome!). The kids are memorizing Jeremiah 31:3 (a portion of it) "...I have loved you with an everlasting love..." and thinking of ways to share God's love with those who need it this week through their Awana program. (Plug for Awana Program: I love this program for my kids! My boys at 3 & 4 are memorizing portions of Scripture every week...which leads them to talk about these stories, and act them out, and truly know them. It also leads me in activities for them that are so great and practical and blesses me with the limited creative juices I posses!).They are giving 3 Valentines (hearts they've done some abstract coloring on:) ) with their verse for the week on it. We are so looking forward to loading up on Thursday and delivering their Valentines to some of our neighbors (an elderly couple without kids and a widowed man) and some of their friends. We'll be baking yummy cupcakes tomorrow to go along with them (again, enter any excuse to bake something yummy is fine by me...especially pregnant me!). I've been cutting and gluing and creating these felt flower clips to get ready to deliver to some women in the community that I've gotten to know that are hurting and living hard lives on Wednesday night. I love handmade gifts. I hope they do too! Woohoo! Let the celebration begin!

Peace out to my Scrooge-side of seeing Valentines as an over-marketed holiday. Everyone could use an extra dose of love!