Happy Valentine's Day!!

I know the popular consensus is that Valentines Day is a Hallmark holiday that card makers salivate at each year, because to them it means a fatty paycheck. But corny or not...I really like it. I know you don't need a day set aside each year to tell the people in your life that you love them...but why not? What does it hurt?

There's a dark side to V-day for the single crowd though. It's a dreaded day where the singles roll their eyes and huff and puff at all the people in love and who have "plans". But I thought that this is the day when we got to tell the people in our lives that we love them?? When is the make or break point of this chocolately holiday come to be determined by if we have someone to tell us they love us back, by us flowers and chocolate, or give us a sappy love poem. When has Valentines become all about me and what I get...instead of how I can make someone else’s day??

I didn't go out to dinner, get flowers or a love poem, or take up that Valentines date offer with a guy that has no future with me this year for the "sake of not being the lame single girl." Instead I spent it working on 7s multiplication tables, playing webkins, and watching a movie with my 9 year old little sister, who I love with my whole heart. I got to show someone what they meant to me. That's what it’s about anyways. And let the record show that I did receive chocolates...what more could I have asked for?

Mmmm! Pancakes!

So I am into the book of Mark lately and in chapter one (right off the bat) we have a little conviction. Mark tells the story of Jesus and the leper. We all know that Jesus heals the leper but what we don't talk about most of the time is that Jesus touched the leper FIRST. He could have healed him, then touched and huged him, but he touched him first. Before Jesus physically changed his life forever, he touched is heart and changed his spirit forever. Jesus recognized his deepest need.

So, if we are called to be like Jesus and show His compassion to the world and the people who do not know him. What do we do? We appeal to the deepest needs of people. We see them for who the beautiful people that God made them to be and meet them where they are. So what are some practical ways that we can show people around us compassion?? Let's brainstorm :-) feed them, hug them, fix something around their house, give them a ride, pay their rent, help them find a job, pray for them, make them something, write them a letter, visit them at the hospital, serve them, watch their kids...

Compassion doesn't just require us to feel, it requires us to react. Sympathy says, "I feel bad that you're hungry." Empathy says, "I know how you feel, I was hungry once myself." Compassions says, "What do you want for dinner? I'm cooking."

What do you think?

I didn't know I couldn't......

In ballet class at OCU, Jo the Toe would always say don't tell them what you can't do, let them tell you that. How do you know you can't do something if you have never tried before?

Too often we let our fear define what we can or can't do without even actually trying. All to often fear spells failure. How many times have you not done something because you were scared? Scared of what other people thought. Scared of not being good at it. Scared of looking stupid. Just plain scared of the unknown.

God gives us so many dreams and many of them just lay dormant because we are too scared to try and make them happen. You never know what you are capable of until you start dreaming and DOING it. Take a chance and see what happens. Nothing is worse than doing nothing.