as you’d imagine in a five-child family, we’ve been through a landslide of valentines. we’ve sewn them, cut & pasted them, hand-drawn them, and purchased them from the supermarket aisle in all their heart-stickered glory. this year we were fresh out of bright ideas, so we went with cookie-tines.
bakery cookies wrapped in glassine with a simple tag. the end.
[incidentally, this here kid kept writing the tags to himself. i think he preferred to keep his cookies, but hopefully last thursday was an opportunity to embrace the joy of giving.]
it’s strange how my version of romance has changed over the years. in my teens, few things could top boxed flowers or truffles of vaguely european origin. but these days love seems less about someone celebrating me, and more about someone angling his heart in the same direction as mine: toward Christ. someone who will walk beside the thirsty, the parentless, the lonely, the clean-out-of-options, the unreached.
i married well.
yesterday two people who mean the world to us boarded a plane for chicago, then brussels, then kampala. they’ll spend the next couple months getting to know their son and standing before a judge with a lifelong promise to care for this young life and waiting on that visa to come on home. they’ll be first time parents in an unfamiliar country and i wish we could be close to help, but God’s there and He’s so much better company.
ps this verse. i read it last week, then again last night, and it’s stuck in my brain in a way that makes me think God’s going to bring it up later. i’m not sure whether to feel strengthened or terrified. 🙂
They triumphed over [the accuser]
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death. (Rev 12.11)
O w e n s t o A f r i c a 
That verse! It came up for me during a testimony on Sunday morning and was brought up again when I shared it with another who is in the deep, dark midst of having a grand testimony of her own. After the test is the testimony… I think more importantly is during the test is the testimony and even more importantly is the blood of the Lamb before, during, after.
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wow. God’s got every detail in His hands. it’s such a great mystery to me. we have it ALL right now in Him, everything…because we are ONE with Him who is one with the Father.=) that verse above is humbling. and the next one that came to me is “..to die is gain” for us who are in Him. but i can’t help but want to know Him more fully “on this side” with this faith-promise-love personally and with His callings for MORE to know His Life for all who will believe. i trust God is going to satisfy such desires He has stirred in me…and us. love you, dear nic.
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So. Many. Goosebumps.
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