Well, as you may know, we’re one week out from the big Valentine’s day, and this month’s blog theme is love. (Even the one on drops because that was about Jesus’ love!).

I found this valentine sent from my Dad to my grandfather 70 years ago, when my Dad was 10,. He sent this to my grandfather, a son of the depression who had left a hardscrabble rural world behind by joining the military. who was on a battleship somewhere in the South Pacific, You may or may not be able to detect the stiffness in this father-son relationship by reading the Valentine. You may or may not notice that the father sent the love letter back to his son with a sparse, congratulatory “Good for you, Love, CJR.” (My dad had written a note on the back saying that he had gotten his smallpox vaccine.)

Valentine’s Day. A day with huge potential for love — either to enjoy the sweetness of relationships with friends, family, lovers, or to highlight the failures of love. I started thinking, we who are called to love others, how do we write a good love letter in sweetness or in failure?

I thought about the Author of the greatest love letter, what he has written to his “sons,” all of us, women and men who inherit his riches because he loved us powerfully, mercifully, in the most unimaginable sacrifice ever made. His perfect, sinless Son, died for my sins, for yours, for ours. Every love letter God sends us is stamped by his own Son’s blood.

He is God, and we are not. But because he has first loved us, we may love others by his power and grace. Spend some time with the love letters he has written you. Do they give you any ideas for love letters you need to write?

“Where are you, Adam?” (Gen.3:6).

I call you by name, for you are mine. (Isaiah 43).

Come to me, and I will bring you peace and rest for your soul. (Matt. 11:28-30)

I chose you as my beloved before time began. (Eph. 1:11-12)

You wearied of me and followed other lovers. (Isaiah 44, Hosea).

I know you inside and out and I love every hair on your head. (Ps. 139)

You were created with my love and made to be my precious possession. (Isaiah 43)

Change your ways and return to me, and you will find hope and faith. Isaiah 30.

You are my ambassador, bearing my glory into the world. (2 Cor. 5)

You are my beloved child, and nothing can separate you from me. (Acts. 17:28; Rom. 8:28-31)

I love to give you gifts (James 1:17)

I have loved you with an everlasting love. (Jer. 31:3)

•  [I] will wipe away every tear from your eyes.
• There will be no more death.
• There will be no more mourning.
• There will be no more crying.
• There will be no more pain.  Rev. 21

I will never leave you nor forsake you. Deuteronomy 31. Hebrews 13.