Ah\u2026 love sweet love! And thank you, Burt Bacharach, for giving us a song that still feels like a warm hug wrapped in a melody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ud83c\udfb6 \u201cWhat the world needs now is love, sweet love.
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.\u201d \ud83c\udfb6
And isn\u2019t that the honest-to-goodness truth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The world doesn\u2019t need more opinions, more arguing, more \u201cI\u2019m right and you\u2019re wrong.\u201d It needs love. Not the syrupy kind that melts like chocolate in the sun — but the sturdy, sacrificial kind that shows up when life gets messy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And speaking of love — let\u2019s give credit where credit is due. Valentine\u2019s Day didn\u2019t begin in a greeting card aisle beside the glittery teddy bears and overpriced roses. It began with a man of faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
St. Valentine was a Christian priest living near Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II — who was not exactly handing out \u201cJesus loves you\u201d bumper stickers. Claudius despised Christianity. He outlawed Christian marriages. But Valentine — bless his brave heart — kept marrying couples anyway. Quietly. Boldly. Faithfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That kind of love will cost something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, Claudius had him arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death. And according to tradition, Valentine prayed for the blind daughter of his jailer, and her sight was restored. Before his execution on February 14th, 278 A.D., he wrote her a farewell note and signed it:
\u201cFrom your Valentine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And just like that — a tradition was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I have to wonder — if St. Valentine could see today\u2019s version of his holiday — would he laugh at all the candy hearts and heart-shaped everything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or would he weep at how easily love gets reduced to a temporary feeling — instead of a daily decision?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe he\u2019d simply remind us of the Word —
\u201cLove must be sincere.\u201d (Romans 12:9)
Because love isn\u2019t just a card.
It\u2019s patience. Forgiveness. Kindness. Loyalty. Prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And if we are children of God, we are living in the greatest love story ever written —
A Savior who didn\u2019t just say \u201cI love you\u201d\u2026
He proved it with a cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Happy Valentine\u2019s Day, dear friends.
God loves you\u2026 and so do I. \u2764\ufe0f<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ah\u2026 love sweet love! And thank you, Burt Bacharach, for giving us a song that still feels like a warm hug wrapped in a melody. \ud83c\udfb6 \u201cWhat the world needs now is love, sweet love.It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.\u201d \ud83c\udfb6And isn\u2019t that the honest-to-goodness truth? The world doesn\u2019t need more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1210,21905,33300,1769,33303,22854,40,11560,132,12344,24343,3727,3728,33302],"class_list":["post-23811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blog","tag-brave-heart","tag-burt-bacharach","tag-christian","tag-claudius","tag-happy-valentines-day","tag-inspiration","tag-jesus-loves-you","tag-love","tag-love-sweet-love","tag-melody","tag-st-valentine","tag-valentine","tag-what-the-world-needs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23814,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23811\/revisions\/23814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}