My First Valentine

Today is the day all about love.

This is probably one of my favorite holidays.

Many might scoff & say I like

because I HAVE a Valentine,

but this holiday is so much more than that.

It is about celebrating love

loving where you are right now,

and treasuring those close to you.

A little girl reminded of me tonight

when she walked into the coffee shop

with her daddy.

My heart stopped,

and my mind drifted to all the Daddy Daughter dates 

I used to go on with my father.

I have always been a Daddy's girl.

He was my first Valentine.

7 Things I Find Lovely//Valentine's Day Edition

This week, in honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I would pick out my 7 favorite things about Valentine's Day this year.

Weheartit

#1: 27 Dresses--Favorite Romantic Comedy in the World

Photo from here

#2: Red Velvet Mini Cupcakes in Springfield, MO--I am totally going to have to get one this weekend! Yum!

#3: Modern Nature by Sondre Lerche in "Dan in Real Life"--Favorite Love Song...besides the end scene with it is adorable!

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#4: Chandler & Monica--cutest TV couple EVER!

Picture from Lizzy

#5: My first really close friend, Lizzy (Elizabeth), got engaged to John this past weekend! They are getting married in September. I am so excited!!!

#6: My parents still send me a Valentine's Day box every year including lip balm, dessert shells, Dove chocolate, Egg Coloring Kit, a CD, McCalister's Deli, and Valentine's Day themed dish rags. I am such a domestic nerd... ;)

#7: My Valentine for the 5th year in a row, Travis Bell. :)

Have a lovely Valentine's Day with the ones you love!

-Beth

p.s. I loved the GLEE Valentine's Day episode this week! Especially, Fat Bottom Girls & Silly Love Songs!

Excerpt from Crazy Love by Francis Chan

In Francis Chan's book, Crazy Love, in the chapter called the Profile of the Obsessed, he shares a powerful passage from Frederick Buechner's The Magnificent Defeat:

"The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love.

IT CONQUERS THE WORLD."

(emphasis added)