#SpreadtheLove

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is the time of year we read cards and little heart-shaped candies that say things like:

"Be Mine"    "I'm Yours"    "Hug Me"    "I Love You"    "True Love"

But what is Valentine's Day all about? What does it make you think of?

Valentine's Day makes me think of my children.

 It makes me think of life before them and their past lives. Lives without a Valentine's day. Lives stripped of comfort and candy hearts. Lives that they had no one to call "mine" or say "I'm Yours" to. Lives of wanting freedom yet clinging to their vile past. Lives of being scared, mistreated, hurt and broken. Lives that didn't know love. Lives that didn't know God.

Valentine's makes me think of their lives now. Lives of hope and newfound love!

Valentine's Day makes me think of Love.

God is love.

Valentine's Day makes me think of God.

We love because He loved us first. 

1 John 4:7-21

^"7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

^"13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us."

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

^"19 We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister."



Valentine's Day makes me think of Adoption.

God LOVES adoption.

God adopted us, so we adopt.

Galatians 4:3-7 

^"3 So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. ⁴ But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, ⁵ so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. ⁶ Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God."

Valentine's Day makes me think of the Orphans.

                      

God cares for the orphans, so we care for the orphans.

John 14:18

^" I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

James 1:27

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

There are so many little ones still waiting. So many looking at candy hearts that say "True Love" and cannot begin to fathom what that may feel like. So many little ones waiting to hear the words "Be Mine" spoken to them. So many who would love to feel your arms around them and look up at you to say "I'm Yours". So many little ones without a family.

So many without love.

So many little ones without a Valentine's Day.

Today I think of them.

But they do have hope.

YOU are their hope!



Click here to visit #SpreadtheLove to see stories of several families living out God's love and being God's hands in caring for the orphans! 

 Posted by Shannon

Soli Deo gloria - Glory to God alone