Valentine\u2019s Day fell on Saturday this year, and we were in Lubbock. I woke up to a sweet surprise — Carl had left me a beautiful card and a pair of sunflower earrings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, if you know our story, you know sunflowers are special to us. They were the flowers at our wedding. So those earrings weren\u2019t just jewelry — they were a sweet memory. A reminder. A quiet little whisper that said, \u201cI still choose you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later that day, Carl and I shared coffee with his sister at — Starbucks — just the three of us, tucked away in a sweet little area and reminiscing about life and treasuring the goodness God has woven into our days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then came entertainment. We spent time with Carl\u2019s brother and family — first a delicious barbecue lunch (Texas does not play around with brisket), and then we watched our 10-year-old great-niece play basketball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh my goodness — what a joy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those precious kids dribbled like pros — until they didn\u2019t. They traveled. They lost the ball. They shot with all their might — some went in the basket and others barely made it halfway to the hoop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But nobody cared. They were having the time of their lives, and we were cheering like it was the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time we headed back home to Austin, our hearts were full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I can\u2019t talk about love in this Month of Love without mentioning the famous wedding scripture:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLove is patient and kind\u2026\u201d (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That chapter is beautiful — but whew — it\u2019s also a boatload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I tried something brave. I replaced the word love with my name:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDonna is patient and kind. Donna does not insist on her own way\u2026\u201d Well — that’s a workout and it sure makes me sit up straight! Oh how wish Donna was always patient and kind!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But — what if we actually lived those words? What if we spoke them before our feet hit the floor every morning? How many marriages would heal? How many friendships would survive? How many homes would be filled with peace?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then comes the greatest love of all:
\u201cFor God so loved the world, that He gave\u2026\u201d (John 3:16)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s not romance. That\u2019s rescue. And when we ask God to fill us with His agape love, we can love beyond our human limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lord\u2026 love through me…..plllease!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#lovethroughme #loveispatient #sunflowers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Valentine\u2019s Day fell on Saturday this year, and we were in Lubbock. I woke up to a sweet surprise — Carl had left me a beautiful card and a pair of sunflower earrings. Now, if you know our story, you know sunflowers are special to us. They were the flowers at our wedding. So those…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23833,"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":[1210,3845,1769,1392,40,132,12343,1022,28540,33318,32258,27483,3729],"class_list":["post-23832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blog","tag-brave","tag-christian","tag-facebook","tag-inspiration","tag-love","tag-love-is-patient-and-kind","tag-love-test","tag-lubbock","tag-nba","tag-starbucks","tag-sunflowers","tag-valentines-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23832","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=23832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23834,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23832\/revisions\/23834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}