Do y’all decorate for Valentine’s Day?
It’s a big day in our house because it’s the LOML’s (Love of My Life) birthday. What a great birthday!! I think he gets shafted every year because he has to buy me something on his birthday. That stinks for him but he’s never complained. Not even once!! That’s the kind of guy he is. His love language is “service” and he lives it out every day. Especially on his birthday. Always doing for everyone else.
Yesterday morning we did our church service at home. We watched Andy Stanley’s sermon from his new series that he teaches at North Point Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, “Love, Dates, and Heartbreaks” Part One. It fits in with Valentine’s Day perfectly. He spoke of “The Right Person Myth.” Finding the perfect person is not the meaning of love. There’s more to a satisfying relationship than finding or being found. John 15 speaks of Jesus being the vine and we are the branches. John 15:2 states “My command is this: Love others as I have loved you.” This is how you become a person someone is looking for and staying for. WOW!! I wish I knew that when I was dating! Sadly, I was looking for someone to make me feel better about myself, someone who could do things for me to show me how much they loved me. Sad, huh?
After the sermon, we talked to our girls, 16 and 15 year olds. I explained how learning from your relationships with others (parents, siblings, friends) helps you when you’re ready to date. Learning how to love yourself and the people in your life, will help you learn how you should treat people and how they should treat you.
The personalities of our daughters are polar opposite. Daughter #1 is very outgoing and needs a lot of attention. But she’s also very naive and she can’t read facial cues or sarcasm. She can’t tell the difference between when people are being kind or making fun of her. She thinks everyone is her friend.
Daughter #2 is extremely shy. She’s perfectly happy being by herself. She’s almost anti-social. She has a few friends but it’s a big deal for her to get together with them. She is our homebody. She’d rather play video games with her brothers.
Our goal for both of our daughters is to see their own value and worth, see how much their heavenly father loves them, how much we, their parents and siblings, love them, and how to be a true friend ~ to love everyone like God loves them.
The LOML and I hope to be good examples of these verses to our loved ones but we fail often. We pray for all of our kids that they will understand the command “Love like I have loved you.” It’s a struggle every day, sometimes every minute of every day.
John 15:1-17
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
If you’d like to hear Andy Stanley’s sermon, and I recommend it highly, the youtube is below.
I hope y’all have a great Valentine’s day with your loved ones and that you will “Love like I have loved you.”
Working on the barn doors to our master bathroom. Can’t wait to share them with you. Come back and visit soon!
Love y’all,
Linda
