Several years ago i went to a winter breakfast tea for the women in our church and someone asked the question to a panel of women... what do you do spice up your marriage? Several answered saying that they spend time together going on a date once a week or tried to get out of town once every few months but the best answer i have ever heard was from our pastors mother Judy Hopper when she said Life Is A Date. You don't always have money for all those things but when you spend your life together... talking about what God is doing in your lives, serving others together, eating meals together, praying together, laughing together now that is a great life! i will never forget it. So.. Life is a date... how are you spending your life with your sweetheart? It cannot just be about the gifts,the chocolates or the nights out. Your whole life together is just that... together.
Anyway, back to Vday! i thought i would share with you some of the fun things i have done in the past and hopefully either give you some ideas or at least laugh!
so... here are some ideas.
1. One year i bought flannel shirts and embroidered i Love you in the collar and the cuffs. He loved that!
2. My go to gift when i am uncreative is cologne.. i love a man that smells good!
3. A down comforter
4. New sheets
5. New pillows
6. a poster with conversation hearts and candy bars
7. i bought each of us journals to write love notes to each other in... i have way more entries to him than he for me but i still write in it...
8. scavenger hunt in the house for a gift... or me!
9. go out for dinner but as we get older and have kids we usually get take out and eat it with candlelight after the kids go to bed
10. Valentine Pajama party with friends and have Breakfast for Dinner!
But this one takes the cake... read on....
i keep seeing on Pinterest this Valentine idea Love in a Jar and it reminded me of what i did one year. OK so long before Pinterest i did this project. you write 365 things you love about your Valentine and write them on hearts of pink, red and white papers. The thought being that you can read one for every day of the year. i got a cute jar and decorated it up and put my notes in the jar. This took forever... i have no problem thinking of all the things i love about my hubs but to write them all out and in good handwriting and some were a paragraph some were a work or a sentence but still.. very time consuming... i thought... boy he is getting my time, creativeness and my love all wrapped up into one gift and a little chocolate on the side... His favorite is the Reece's hearts (really he likes the eggs better but one holiday at a time right? although i saw the eggs today while at the store). i was so excited to give it to him. He acted like he really liked it and it was a great day. WELL...... about a week later, after he had gone to work i walked into our bathroom and what do i see but every single one of those notes in the trash and an empty cute jar! i was so upset! All the Work.. i spent hours doing this for him and he did not do what the instructions said... i know... men don't read directions...i should have known...haha! Men! i cannot help to think... here he was reading all these while he was taking a smash!!! (smash is pats word for it... sorry! ) Poo!!! Yuck! it just made me crazy.
Now i look at this crazy story and know that he knows i love him...but after a few years i started to see that i was doing something for him that really i probably wished he would do for me. i was giving him something in one of my many love languages but really he would have been happy with me ironing his shirts or making his favorite dinner and watch a basketball game with him. Our personalities are TOTAL opposite. i think on this now and really it would be pretty cool to sit and read 365 things that my love loves about me all at once. (not while taking a smash). He did love the gift, just not how i wanted him to love it.
Isn't that just like me and God? He gives me such great gifts with anticipation of me opening it and using it for His great Glory and i just take it all in at once and don't cherish it everyday... i just want to appreciate these Great Life Dates God gives. Savor it and learn from them. It is about the Giver not just the gifts. Of course the greatest gift ever was given to us in Jesus His son!!!!
For God so LOVED the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOEVER believes in Him, will not perish but have ETERNAL LIFE! Jn.3:16
Tonight... we are heading to Next Door Pizza for dinner and hang out at Starbucks sharing earphones and watching Passion2014 in Houston live stream before we catch a movie... we haven't had Friday nights to ourselves in years let alone go to a movie on a weekend evening...
So my friends... Life is a Date! Love well! Love hard! and Love with out expecting anything in Return.
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