When God Writes a Love Letter

As the stories of our lives are written from the very ink of God's heart, it is not surprising that he chose for our travel approval to land us in the Philippines over Valentine's Day.  Never particularly sentimental about the holiday, it all changed when I returned home to ponder the significance of that February 14. 


We were fresh off the plane and waiting for the 15th to come when we would meet our newest son and daughter.  You might say love had taken us around the world, but it wasn't the hearts and roses kind of love.  It was scared in your shoes love.  It was the nervous love of not knowing whether it would be reciprocated or well-placed.  It was a very poor sort of love, a human kind of love that perhaps does leak helium like a red balloon.   I felt totally incapable of the task at hand. 

Home now three weeks, I am reminded minute by minute that God wrote the love letter best.  He sent his most precious gift, Jesus, into a foreign country that was marred by indescribable poverty and willful disregard.  He never worried about whether his love was reciprocated or well-placed.  His was a heavenly sort of love that never gives up and doesn't leak out. 

On Valentine's Day, there are hundreds of cards that say: "I love you because...you are sweet, you are beautiful, you are fun, you are smart, you are my everything."  For an analytical personality, you start to wonder what if you cease being sweet, beautiful, fun, smart and that person's everything.  What then?

On the other hand, God writes an everlasting Valentine on the hearts of his children.  "I love you because I love you."  I feel so undone by that.  His regard for me makes me want to be a lover like him. 

Tonight as Ben and I were fixing dinner, Luke grabbed a hold of Ben's leg and spontaneously started praying, "Dear Lord Jesus, Thank you I have Daddy and Mommy now." 

My eyes are brimming with tears and I ask openly, "Why me?  I am so undeserving."  Yet the little child in me wants to grab hold of my Heavenly Father's leg and say, "Thank you for loving me so well.  Thank you for taking me around the world and back again.  Thank you for expanding my family though you knew my love was inadequate.  Thank you for pursuing me with ardor and never giving up.  Thank you for your untiring love letter."