Loving Love

From what I have read, St Valentine was a good example of a Christian willing to sacrifice all for his Lord.  Valentines Day is, to our family, about celebrating love.  Since God is love, what a great thing to celebrate.  We celebrate the love of our Savior, the love we have for one another, and the love that has brought those of us who are married together.  We are incredibly blessed to have our children married to amazing spouses and pray both for their marriages and for our children's future spouses and their marriages.

David and I were invited to speak at our church's youth group on the subject of purity from a parents perspective.  Purity is such a part of love.  If we love our heavenly Father we want to obey him in purity, if we want to honor our future spouse we will remain pure in the physical, and if we love our spouse we will remain pure in our hearts and lives.  Purity doesn't end when we get married.  It is important to purify ourselves by the renewing of our minds in Bible reading.  So much around us tries to muddy our minds with impure thoughts and attitudes.  It is so important to guard our hearts and the hearts of our children.  Purity is a subject I am very passionate about.  I desire my children to remain pure for their spouses, but not just my children, this generation.  I am afraid that many children (not to mention their parents) don't really know what purity is.  A definition of purity is the condition or quality of being pure; freedom from anything that debases, contaminates, or pollutes; freedom from immorality, especially of a sexual nature.  If we can envision a glass of pure water, we would see a water free from anything that would pollute it, a glass of water we would like to have. That is how we should appear to our spouse or future spouse, and most importantly to our Heavenly Father.  Matthew 5:8 says "Blessed are the pure in heart." Throughout the Bible we are told to keep ourselves pure.  Keeping ourselves pure is pleasing to God and it encourages others to walk the walk of purity as we try to be an example to our Christian brothers and sisters, and also to the world.  2 Timothy 2:21 says "Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work."  May we be useful to the Master, prepared to do any good work.

Ok, enough of my soap box, I could go on and on, but here are some fun pictures of our recent celebrations.  God bless and have a great day.

Alicia

Such a beautiful start to our Valentine's Day

Red, heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast is a must

Valentine's dinner

The boys enjoyed themselves also

Look at this cutie, already 2 months old

Brentie's birthday

Chinese New Year a good excuse for Chinese food

Presidents day saying the "Pledge of Allegiance"

Aidric loved his three cornered hat.