What's love got to do with it?

So, I lied.  I know.  I am sorry.  I told you my next blog would be about the Gliddens.  And the NEXT one will be.  But I said that before Valentine's Day.  And now that Valentine's Day has happened, well, I just have to blog about it.

The week leading to Valentine's day was one for the books.  The Spring Semester at Asbury Seminary commenced.  The girls actually went back to school with only a two-hour delay and an early dismissal instead of days off.  My job started back to its full schedule plus a few extra events.  Luke started his new classes and was offered a part-time job at our local public library.  Oh yeah, and I started my class.  We use a word for this here... transition.  We once again found ourselves in transition.  New things starting or re-starting.  New normals, new routine.  And as I've learned, new is not another word for "bad" but it is a word for "change".  

Time to grow and stretch and learn what it looks like to be this Embree family.  And located conveniently at the end of the week was Valentine's Day.  Traditionally a day where Luke and I should somehow affirm our love for one another through gifts, flowers, cards, a date night out, and a myriad of other such romantic ventures.  But, as you can guess, our week didn't really lend itself to that kind of a Valentine's Day.

So, the Sunday before our "new" week, we thought that maybe this Valentine's Day we would spend it as a family.  More specifically we would spend it by showing love to our daughters by making it a day to serve them rather than to be with each other.  We shared our idea with another family who had daughters and moved forward.

As the week went on, I worked bit by bit on our plan.  Each girl got an invitation to a Valentine's Dinner in their honor.  They were told to "dress up" and get ready to eat "all their favorite foods."  Menus were planned, ideas for blessing our daughters were shared, and the plan was concocted all between classes and jobs and snow and school.  

When the night finally came, I daresay all of us parents were tired.  Luke and Hollie had been in class from 8-6 doing an intensive class.  Chad, who drives a bus, finished his route only to find out he needed to head right back out because of early dismissal.  My plans to go shopping after work were thwarted by the same early dismissal and by the time we all arrived on Friday night at 7 pm with a group of very "not tired" young ladies, I think we were all a little frazzled and wondering a bit why we had thought this was a good idea.

As the dinner started, we took pictures, seated our girls, and began to serve them.  In those hectic moments, I could literally feel the spirit of God, His peace and love, begin to fill our home.  After dinner, we took the girls into the living room and each of us shared what "love" means to us.  And then we shared about the greatest love of all; the love of God shown to us through Jesus and manifest in our lives through the Holy Spirit.  We shared the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet and how that act of humility showed love through service.  As parents we then washed each of our daughter's feet while speaking words of honor and love to them and then prayed over each one individually a prayer of hope and blessing.

In that moment,  in my heart, love was manifest.  All that had gone on that week, led to this one moment.  All the planning, the praying, the juggling of schedules, the cooking, the laying down our lives for each other so we could take classes, read books, play games, eat meals, clean house, and live life suddenly found form in love.  It was as though all those acts of love all week long became tangible in a moment.  Luke saying "I love you" when he watched Caleb so I could go to class and did laundry when I was working out.  Hannah saying "I love you" by letting me nap when I had a terrible headache and taking Caleb for a walk and playing with him.  Naomi saying "I love you" when she made us numerous Valentines and shared her way-too-much sugary candy with us.  Caleb saying "I love you" when he wouldn't go to bed without another "KISS!!" and "HUG!".  Me saying "I love you" by getting dinner ready for my family before I went to work and buying Luke his favorite drink and dessert to celebrate his first week of classes.

Because, love, real love, is not one day, or one thing, or one feeling.  Love is the thing that takes "all these virtues" and "binds everything together in perfect harmony." (Col. 3:14).  It was our prayer this Valentine's Day that our daughters would experience love, a love that will challenge them for the rest of their lives to serve others, to give them honor and to keep God first in their hearts.  I hope that for years to come, as February 14 rolls around, I hear my girls say, "Do you remember that Valentine's Day when Mom and Dad..."  And I pray that they will measure each moment of love they experience in life by that beautiful standard set by Christ and shared with them last night.

Love has everything to do with it.  Everything you do for others from the most mundane to the most profound, when it has love in the center of it and love as the motivation of it, is it.  The big IT.  The point of all.  For God so LOVED.  God is LOVE.  LOVE never fails.  Love, lived out in the everyday, manifest in the smallest things, is the BIG thing.  My prayer today is that  you see that love in the ones around you.  You let that love motivate you to do BIG things like.. unload the dishwasher and take out the trash.  "Above all these things put on love, which binds them together in perfect harmony."

Happy Valentine's Day.. one day late.