Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day, sweet friends 🤍

For me, Valentine’s Day has never been about fancy reservations or heart-shaped boxes wrapped in cellophane. It’s always been about construction paper on the kitchen table. About stickers and paint and glitter — so. much. glitter.

When I was a little girl, the magic was in what we made. The careful cutting. The lopsided hearts. The way a homemade card carried more weight than anything.

And now… I get to pass that tradition on.

There is something sacred about watching little hands create. This year, my absolute favorite project was simple: wooden heart blanks and paint brush-tip markers. That’s it. But oh my goodness — they were hypnotic. Swirls and lines and layered colors, one after another. We just kept making them. No pressure. No perfection. Just color flowing onto wood.

It was unexpectedly therapeutic.

Grab these cheap little cuties on Amazon

The kind of simple joy that slows your breathing and reminds you that beauty doesn’t have to be complicated.

And these are seriously the most fun paint brush tip pens ever, also Amazon

We spent the day making handmade cards, followed by homemade pizza night and of course, the most romantic Disney movie of all time — the original 1955 Lady and the Tramp.

Once the littles were asleep, checked out a new romantic western, Where the Wind Blows. Because romantic Westerns were embedded in my brain since Dr. Quinn…Ok ok disclaimer, this is not Jane Seymour level of acting but the Trevor Donovan “visuals” made up for it…:-)

But somewhere between the paint markers and the pizza dough, this day shifted deeper for me.

Last Sunday we made a “God Is Love” sign together. Just paper, stickers, and a quiet truth that felt bigger than the project itself. There’s something powerful about letting your hands create while your heart sits with a simple fact:

God loves us.

Valentine’s Day can feel hokey with a bloated expectation of perfect textbook romance, consumerism and overpriced dinners. Love packaged and priced and put on display. And while I adore celebrating the strength required to make a relationship precious, I’ve also come to cherish the quieter love underneath it all.

We can’t fully love another until we understand our own worth. And that understanding doesn’t come from compliments or external validation. It comes from knowing we are loved by our Heavenly Father — not for what we do, but simply because we are His.

Sometimes when I’m feeling down on myself, I ask one small question:

How would I speak to myself if my child came to me feeling this way?

I wouldn’t shame.
I wouldn’t criticize.
I wouldn’t weaponize regret.

I would kneel down. I would soften and remind them they are still good. Still worthy. Still deeply loved. Loved not for what we are in the moment, but all we have been and could be.

Why is it so hard to offer ourselves the same compassion?

Life gets messy and tangled. I’ve always loved the image of our lives looking like the back of an embroidery piece — knots and stray strings everywhere. Loose threads. Wrong turns. But just flip it over, and God has managed to take all of our mistakes, mess ups and wrong turns and still make something beautiful on the right side.

Every single time in my life where I felt like things were too wrong to ever be right again — He took those broken pieces and built something better than I ever could have imagined. Not the life I planned. But a deeper one. A fuller one. A more beautiful one.

His mosaic will always be superior to our best laid plans.

That, to me, is true love.

Watching us stumble.
Seeing the pain that enters our lives — by our own choices or against our will.
And still weaving the twisted, knotted threads into something even more radiant than we hoped for.

It’s scary sometimes.
It hurts sometimes.
Growth usually does.

But remember; you are deeply, fiercely, relentlessly loved.

Trust that the design is still forming. Let Him turn the canvas.
Know that He has a plan, mapped out just for you. You don’t need to worry, or remain a hostage of regret.

Give Him time to make your life better than you ever dreamed of.

Simply Because, He loves you.