"He is jealous for me. Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree. Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy....I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me."    - John Mark McMillan 

I looked out at the snow through

the frosty windows. It was wildly blowing and I just resigned to be inside today. I brewed myself a big pot of coffee, put on my favorite old grey sweater and sat close to the fireplace. Today would be the day...I could feel it. I would read the letters.

I gently pulled the ribbon that was tied neatly around the stack of folded papers. My Aunt Mary had sent them to me, and my emotions were heavy, as I saw the handwriting across the top addressing, "My darling girl." I had put this day off for so long.

The letters, neatly stored these some 86 years, once owned by my grandmother, were written by a man I'd never known, but I had known his son...and certainly loved him...my sweet Daddy. As I looked at the top heading, I read "Moorhead, Minnesota, May 19, 1926.

When placed in front of the realization of where you came from and who you came from, it can be emotional. You wonder who they were and what were they like. Were they kind? Were they faith-filled? Did they love?

I began to read and was thrust back in time as I could see the face of this man, from the pictures I had memorized, and could almost see him writing his beloved little Thelma. He had traveled with his brother, Walt, to the unknown worlds of a neighboring town, trying to get work.

"My dearest sweetheart," one letter begins "...I want you with me and didn't go to sleep for a long time last night. I will get ready for you...by next week, if the Lord is willing." The letters continue to tell how his work is going and he says, "Well, sweetheart, I am real lonesome." There is a baseball game but "that costs fifty cents which is too much, so we (he and his brother) don't go. Wish you were here to go. Your lonesome boy, Herbert."

The passion and love that my grandfather had for my grandmother, was the same passion and love that I saw my father have for my mother. The kind of love that makes you feel safe and secure....a love that loves fiercely and mightily...a love that accepts, encourages, and fosters relationship.

My father always used the same words as my dad.... "If the Lord is willing," trusting that God really is in charge of our journey.

Love can move in a powerful way.... It can stir the heart of the hurt and hardened, it can wound the pride of the mighty. Love can stand against the toughest circumstances and bind those involved, closer together.

The example of the letter-writer, my grandfather, Herbert Youmans, was someone who loved like a hurricane....it was a strong force. And that love reminds me of a love that we will never fully understand....the love of God.

His love is for us. It's a love that covers our sins like a white blanket of freshly fallen snow. It's passionate, it's unending, it's blizzard-like....blowing wildly, falling softly.

When I think about my grandpa and his depth of love for his wife, I think of God's love for us. We are the bride of Christ....chosen....forgiven....accepted.

Jesus Christ, born as a child in a manger, starting at the bottom rung of the ladder, not in the presidential suite, moved into the neighborhood and brought a blizzard of love.

What would it be like if we loved people like this.....if we reached out to those near us..next to us...and spoke kindly, cared genuinely, loved deeply.

Wherever you are today....stop right now.....let those loved ones know....they are loved....fiercely, mightily.....not just at Valentine's Day...but every day.

Jn 1:14 "The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood." 

As I walked through the misty rain today, the ever present moisture in the air reminded me of the mystery of God's presence all around us. It is nice that those things which we can feel and see with our senses, can point us to something so much greater, something so mysterious, something so hard to understand, yet so wonderful to try to figure out.

Three weeks have passed now since I planted my green pepper seeds in individual Styrofoam containers in my room. My enlightened idea was to grow the plants in my room and transplant them outside as soon as the ground thawed. We are constructing an outdoor, portable greenhouse for the plants, which would provide warmth and shelter for them until spring was in full bloom. Well, over three weeks have passed and my seeds have not yet germinated. I am about to throw in the towel and possibly replant. All the watering, waiting, singing to the little seeds and the anticipation for the glimpse of anything green seems to have been a waste. I cannot figure out why they did not grow......perhaps it was my singing.

I guess the failed gardening did teach me quite a bit. As we approach Valentine's Day, and as we have been covering extensively in our classes the complexities and wonders of intimacy, my efforts in gardening have reminded me a lot about love. I have begun to really learn that my love has never been perfect. I have tried hard at times to love with all my heart, but I did not quite know what I was doing, or where I was headed. I have found the true struggle to love intimately--- the struggle to be totally honest, vulnerable, allowing myself to be known and to know, and allowing myself to embrace freedom with my love. In a sense, I have put effort into really trying to love, I have planted many seeds, added a little water here and there, sang a few songs, tried this and that, reached out for warmth and intimacy, but in the total essence of love, especially the love of Jesus, I have barely seen any green come through the earth.

This of course could leave me feeling, or perhaps even the rest of the world feeling a little frustrated and gloomy, a lot like the muddy, grey façade out of my window. But in that slight place of desperation and despair, I feel God telling me to be patient. Jesus showed us how to love. He really did. He saw our struggle, or failed attempts of watering and sowing and sunning and singing, and He came and gave us all tremendous redemption, that we may truly live....and truly LOVE so that we could all be Perfect Gardeners.

I do not really understand it. My mind cannot grasp it, but my heart beats with thanksgiving. 

The gall of Valentine's Day - showing up just after I survived standing in the middle of a bunch of smooching couples on New Year's Eve! February is not the only time I am single, it is just one of the times it gets shoved in my face. Truth be told, I don't count how long I have been single in months. I count it in years. It hasn't always been this way for me. It probably won't always be this way. But right now? For Valentine's Day? I'm single. Before this starts sounding too pathetic, I should tell you something: I don't mind being single. I even like it. In fact, I don't think most of us singles mind it most of the time. The minding happens when, during times like Valentine's Day, an unacknowledged fear lurking somewhere inside raises its eyebrows in question, "Will I be single forever?" Or maybe the fear in you says something different. "I missed my chance." "No one wants me." "Who will give me chocolate?"

I find myself more content than most in my singleness - happy even (I buy my own chocolate). It isn't that the above listed fears never get my attention by poking me in the rib and asking "Who does this belong to?" It's that I have been single long enough to learn some truths that dwell in my core - truths that give the fears a little hug when they get cranky and tell them to simmer down. The most important truth is that I am not alone.

This is not where I give you the "let Jesus be your boyfriend" lecture. While I do think singleness is a time you can cling to Jesus in a special way, even Jesus surrounded himself with friends. I choose to focus on cultivating committed friendships. The companionship, security, and heart intimacy that people long to find in marriage - I have those things. I have people who do life with me. I have people who know me. I have people I can call when I didn't think about how I would get the table I bought on Craigslist into my house after I got it home (yeah, that happened). But this has taken intentionality, vulnerability, and a lot of cups of tea.

So this year, use Valentine's Day for the purpose it serves in your single life - clearance chocolate on February 15th. Then, on the 16th and 17th and any other days you find yourself single, pat your fears on the head, tell them to sit tight, and call a friend to share some chocolate with.

"Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person....Sometimes all it takes is one kind word to nourish another person. Think of the ripple effect that can be created when we nourish someone. One kind empathetic word has a wonderful way of turning into many."

Mister Rogers

Valentine's Day is senseless!! An untrue statement if you consider the totality of our senses that are aroused for the purpose of enticing us into participating in the holiday. We see hearts everywhere, hear creative commercials, touch an endless number of cards trying to find just the right one, smell the overload of scrumptious chocolates and taste our expectations rising in our throats and yet never giving satisfaction because they remain unspoken.

Don't get me wrong, this created holiday at its core (to "express love to those you love") is truly valuable. The untold expectations it initiates is where the senselessness of the holiday comes.

A simple solution and yet one very seldom used... communication. Asking your husband when and how he feels loved by you. Taking time to thank him for the times he expresses his love to you. TELLING him and not assuming he knows what spurs your heart on; when you feel loved. Let your husband in on the little secrets of your heart, those inner desires and yearnings, what brings you delight. Take time to discover his; what's stomping around in the depths of the man you married. Ask and listen.

Psalm 37:5 tells us to "Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart."

Only our amazing God loves in the perfect way. Let Him give you the desires of your heart as you learn about His amazing love.