A Valentine’s Message:Crumpled Carnations

This little heart showed up on my pants as I was driving to a doctor's appointment last week. It's shriveled lettuce that fell out of the fast food sandwich I was eating:).

For some not-so-strange reason, my early thoughts today went to the awkward high school Valentine’s years of anxiously, eagerly, achingly anticipating the delivery of a slightly-crumpled colored carnation. And that led me to the ache for broken hearts who are cringing now or gritting teeth to endure the next 48-96 hours when most Valentine’s festivities and stories will have subsided.

Even though I don’t have time to blog today, I am writing to any and all, myself included, who have looked for love in all the wrong places and failed to find it, when all along LOVE has not only looked for, but found us, and written the message of love in the stars, in strangers’ faces, in 66 books and too many stories and letters to be counted. I want us to gush over the Love of the One who is right now writing Love into our hearts by redeeming stories in ways that could possibly look more like hate than love but nonetheless bear the undeniable handwriting of a God who lovingly created us, refused to leave us when we refused to trust him, and pursued our broken and wayward hearts with a love that will not let us go.

I found this love message written in the sky during a long road trip.

Tomorrow I’ll write more about how this love compels us to love. But meanwhile, stop. Look for His love. In what surprising places do you or have you seen it? Will you share your story with someone who desperately needs to hear it? (Hint: this is a good place to share!)

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God, and so we are.” 1 John 3:1