True love

Happy day before Valentine’s Day!  I hope your expectations aren’t in roses and chocolate and glittery cards.  Loving and being loved really don’t have anything to do with those, do they?  I used to have my feelings hurt if my husband didn’t somehow guess what would mean a lot to me.  Sheesh – how ridiculous is that? 

Here’s a story I think about every year in February.  For our first Valentine’s Day after we were engaged, my fiancée gave me a pretty wrapped box and inside was a used down vest from the thrift store.  I’m telling you that not to shame him but to share something I’ve learned… Jeff gave me that vest because 1) he wasn’t really skilled at the whole gift-giving thing (yet), 2) it was full of high quality down which he thought I would appreciate for cross-country skiing and 3) because he got such a great deal on a name-brand vest.  Great deals are my husband’s love language.  (I need to write Gary Chapman and tell him there are six languages not five).  At the time, I was sooooo disappointed and hurt and even offended.  But I was looking at that gift from the perspective of all the florist shop/jewelry store/Hallmark ads instead of as an expression of his love. 

PS - Jeff has never given me a used gift since and his gift-giving skillz are much-improved.  And I don’t really want him to spend money on Valentine’s gifts.  I’d much prefer doing something fun together.  Oh, and dark chocolate is nice.  The end.

Let’s vow to make this holiday about looking for ways to GIVE love not to receive it.  We already have the over-the-top love of our God.  If only we could experience and KNOW His love that is too great to fully understand!

On a completely unrelated note, we almost completely missed the great snow and ice storm of 2014 in Portland.   As we drove out of town on the morning of the 6th, snowflakes were just starting to fall.  We were up near Port Townsend, WA for a ministry staff retreat.  It was COLD there (in the teens and low 20’s) but no snow.  We watched the storm in Oregon via cell phone updates and knew the city was virtually shut down.  After the retreat we spent the night in Seattle where a couple of inches of snow fell.  

We loved time with our kids and grandbaby and new grand-puppy.  Meet Biscuit...

Despite my disproportionate fear of driving in inclement weather, we decided to head home on Sunday even though conditions in Portland were still pretty iffy.  The main roads had been cleared but side roads were still treacherous and temps were below freezing.  We had no problems at all and only slipped a teensy bit when we got on our street.  Schools were closed again on Monday and I almost landed on my bom bom in the grocery store parking lot.  Now?  Everything is melted and it’s almost 60°.   I missed the stay-in-the-house-drinking-cocoa-and-watching-the-snow-fall part but not the fear-of-driving part.

I hope you have a great Valentine’s day and a good weekend.  We’re having friends spend the night with us and I’ll make something chocolate for dessert.  Because every Valentine’s day should be celebrated with chocolate!