Valentine’s Day is just two days away! 

Now, that is no newsflash. You have seen the hearts and candy and cards, not to mention the flowers, for over a month now in every commercial building.

Now, I realize that there are Lovers and there are Haters of Valentine’s Day. There are movies made about ‘Anti-Valentine’s’ Day, where sweethearts have been burned and they band together to trash and smash anything VALENTINES. While it may be comical to watch, there is a profound and deep message lying under the surface.

I happen to be one of those disgusting Valentine’s Day Lovers! I have loved Valentine’s Day for as long as I can remember. I loved buying or making my valentine’s to take to my classmates at school. I loved hanging up the valentine decorations we would make in elementary school. I loved building our Valentine Mailboxes that would hold the cards my friends would place in them. I loved receiving those chalk tasting ‘conversation hearts,’ not because I was going to eat them, but because I couldn’t wait to read the messages they held.

I loved the Valentine parties at school when I was younger, but most of all, I loved that my Mom always made Valentine’s Day special for me and my sisters! She made us a special breakfast on Valentines Morning. She sent us to school with a Valentine treat in our lunch. She made sure we had special valentine cards and candy to hand out to our friends and something ‘valentine esc” to wear to school on that special day. This spoke the most highly to me since I was the oldest and knew that financially this was near impossible for her. She never let on to us that it was difficult. She always found a way to show us she loved us! By doing that for me, she allowed me to then show love to my friends.

As I grew and took on those responsibilities for myself, it was her example that encouraged me to love my children the same way. While finances have never been “flowing abundantly” in our home, loving each other and others was a priority.

My mother’s demonstration of love was pure and came from her heart. Her love for us and others was not something she had to work at, it came naturally. She still loves us and gives to us sacrificially. She is in the beginnings of alzheimer’s. While it is excruciatingly painful for my sister’s and I to watch her lose the ability to do daily tasks that used to come so easily to her, we are blessed and encouraged to see her loving heart still in action.

We recently picked my Mom up to take her to dinner. We had my two grand babies with us. My Mom pulled out two Sees Candy bags from her purse. Each bag was sealed with stickers and written on with, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! LOVE, G.G. and PAPA!

The writing was wobbly at best, and she would have normally used beautifully crafted valentine gift bags. However, placed inside of each bag was a single chocolate heart, one each for her great-grandchildren. I let my grand babies enjoy those chocolate hearts from G.G., and saved those Sees bags for myself!

While the dreaded disease of Alzheimer’s ravishes my mother’s frail body, it cannot steal her heart!!

My mother spent the main years of her life LOVING others and demonstrating that LOVE in ACTION. She has passed down that legacy to all those she loved so well!

I could not help but remember and sing the song that my grandmother, her mom who taught her to LOVE OTHERS WELL, taught my sister’s and I when we were very young.

It comes from the book of first John….

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, BECAUSE GOD IS LOVE!”                 I John 4:7–8

Love is in us if we know God! It is up to us to chose to demonstrate that love or hold on to hurt.

Not all of us have had a loving mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, siblings, or friends. Some of us bear scars of deep hurt and rejection. But My Dear Friends, the Love of God is GREATER!

Truth Bomb

When we love others we demonstrate the love of God.

We all have the power of God’s Love in us! When we take that powerful love and love others, we are showing the Love of God.

You are LOVED Dear Friend, by me on this Valentine’s Day and most of all by the author of LOVE, God Himself!

Happy Love Day!

Speak Truth Love