Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

I'd like to tempt your tummy with a little ditty about this here picture straight from the Godiva website...

"Some attractions are just too powerful to resist. Surrender your heart to our universal object of love-- chocolate! A sumptuous assortment of milk, dark, and white chocolates, including ganaches, creams, caramels, and nuts." Valentine's Day Ballotin 1 lb. (36 pieces)

Why am I sharing this picture and write up? Besides the fact that it's my treat to myself for signing a three-book deal with Multnomah Publishers, it's also what I'm sending to a very special winner from my Heart Chocolate contest. Please come check out the Discussion Boards at www.amywallace.com to find out who that special somebody is! And while you're there, sign up and join the Heart Chocolate community. Right now we're talking about fiction, the life of moms, a writer's life, and my favorite subject... chocolate. :-) There's also a place to talk about Bible studies and a special place for students. I'd love to see those boards get busy with some God-sized encouragement to be found there.

I'd like to leave you with a Valentine thought for this special day we celebrate love. I quite think this is a Hallmark holiday that we as Christians need to embrace and show the world what love is really all about. Chocolates are wonderful (my girls and I have taught my husband well in this area) kisses and cards from my kiddos are awesome. But knowing I'm unconditionally loved by at least four people in addition to my Heavenly Daddy...priceless. ;-) Because that's what it's all about...LOVE. Without it we wither and with it we blossom.

The all-time best place to find it is in the arms of your Heavenly Daddy. Here are two posts about Unfailing love and The Call of God that are worth a second read.

Other incredible places to receive love once we're enjoying the love of God... a spouse, kiddos, friends. And a most important place... ourselves. Check out A Place of Grace to see what I mean.

And when all my words on love fail to perfectly capture the essence of love, there's only one place to turn...

1 Corinthians 13. Paul calls it the most excellent way~ LOVE.

1 Corinthians 13 (NLT)

If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.

Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
Love does not demand its own way.
Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear.

It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.

There are three things that will endure--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!! You are LOVED!!!