Red hearts, sweet chocolate and loving cards! I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day!
I don’t think schools today do much to celebrate Valentine’s Day the way we did when I was in elementary school. Do you remember when we collected shoeboxes? We covered the box in white, red or pink paper. Then we cut out hearts from red construction paper and glued them on the box. We made a slot for the “mail” or valentine cards we expected to get.
We had our names on our creations. I remember my first grade teacher, Mrs. Pickle, lined up the beautiful boxes. Then we got out valentines we had brought from home and got ready to “mail” them to each other.
Writing everyone’s name on the envelopes was a job, and we signed them all with our name and “X’s,” “O’s” and hearts.
No one was left out. We all gave a card to everyone in our class so there were no hurt feelings. The card packs even had a special card for our teacher. After all the cards were “mailed,” we sat at our desks and got them out to read them! Usually, Kool-Aid and cookies were served about this time.
There was always that special person we wanted to get a card from that said “love.” Would they say “I love you” and draw a heart?
Did you realize the Bible says things about our hearts? I love the verse from Proverbs 4:23: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
As we think about this verse, the truth stares us in the face. It goes hand in hand with Proverbs 23:7: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he...”
In the Bible, the heart was seen as the seat of emotions and insight. Actions came from the heart. The heart was seen as the control center, more or less, of our mind, soul and spirit we use in making decisions.
Valentine’s Day is a good time for us to examine our hearts — and see if we have allowed ideas, images, actions, anything ungodly to come into our hearts and have influence over us. Today’s world offers music, movies, books and events that are not Godly and are so easily accessible. It is critical that we remain on guard to keep sin out of our lives — to guard our hearts.
God knows us, He knows our hearts, as in Jeremiah 20:12: “Yet, O Lord of hosts, You who test the righteous, Who see the mind and the heart...”
Whether or not you got that special valentine from a special person, God sent you the most incredible love note in history: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
