Happy Valentines Day!
Today we did not make it to church and so we had our own Sunday school together as a family. We studied...you guessed it...love. We talked about loving our neighbors and family, animals, and most importantly God. It is very easy to get wrapped up in the concept of love and forgetting the most important thing of all..."that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son" John 3:16
I feel it is so important to impart to my kids how much God loves us, and how much we need to love others in return and yet I get still side tracked by silly holidays myself. That is why I am so grateful that Valentines Day fell on "church day" as Leah calls it, so we could have yet another reminder of Gods love!
Today we went to Dollar General to let the kids pick out one treat. After deliberating and picking up numerous things, only to find something else and pick it instead, they finally decided on their treats. We went to stand in the very long line to checkout and both kids were commenting on the balloons. The lady behind us had struck up a conversation with us and out of no where she whips out 2 dollars and gives one to each kid so they could pick out a balloon! What a perfect real world example of loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. Holding back tears I thanked the stranger and Leah looked at her and said "Love God with all your might" her attempt at our memory verse for the week!
This week we should strive to remember all of the ways God loves us and show those to our neighbors!
"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." 1 John 4:16
"Love is patient, love is kind and it is not jealous...Love never fails...the greatest of these is love." 1 Cor 13 4-13
"You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself..." Lev 19:18