Mod Valentine

So mod! So hip!  So adorable!

Norah knows how to groove!

I need a faster shutter speed to keep up!

She loves her daddy... and I think she holds quite a sweet spot in her daddy's heart ♥

She is all cuteness ~

front side,

back side,

inside,

and out.

♥

Norah wants to know if you have met Monkey...

Daddy gave it to her last Valentine's Day.

 Ooooooo!

Giving some loving!

I don't think this princess will be granting any audiences today....

Merp.

 That's.  It.

You.

Off with your head!

♥

(Queen of Hearts)

Cuddle time ♥

Sunshine from the left window illuminating Leah's beautiful hair and Norah's sweet face.

I know.  I'm such a noob.

Real photographers keep to one style during a shoot.

I'm still figuring all this stuff out.

The next photos are more journalistic

and would look great against a darker canvas...

so imagine that for me.

♥

Really, Norah!

Your eyes are so big, clear, and expressive. 

♥

I hope she figures out that not ALL walls are now chalkboard walls....

(Sorry, Mom!)

Happy Valentine's Day, All!

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,

that we should be called children of God.

And that is what we are!

1 John 3:1

We know how much we delight in our own children.

How much more does our Heavenly Father delight in us.

♥

Note to my readers:   I am perplexed over a computer issue...  my laptop monitor shows these photos bright and clear.  My desktop monitor shows the photos dark and yellowed.  I don't know which one to believe!  Can you let me know how they show up on your monitor?  I am really hoping that my laptop is correct.  Either way, one of my monitors will need calibration.  Thanks for helping!  

KEYS - Great is the Lord!

mcp12 Love photo entry 2

Happy Valentine's Day!  The music posted today has its origins in my friend Leah's wedding.  What a joyful day that was!  Her husband and I pre-recorded the wedding music (he on his violin and I on the piano). Kevin is so gifted, and it was a gift of love to make his own wedding music for his bride.  So cool.  During the ceremony, Kevin and Leah wanted their favorite song, "Great is the Lord" (by Michael W. Smith) to be played while the poem "How Do I Love Thee" was read.  (Can't beat the romance of that!)

The privilege was mine to create a prelude to the song while the poem was being read, then build the music's  joy and intensity leading into "Great is the Lord".  Enjoy it here. (Minimize its page to hear the music while you finish reading this post.)

So many thoughts of love today...  love for friends, love for spouses, love for God, love from God!

Weddings are special reminders of God's love for His people; how He cherishes us, nourishes us, protects us, provides for us, just as a groom does for his bride. Then as God pours that love into us, it overflows from us into each other.  For as God loves His church, so a husband loves His wife: selflessly, sacrifically, and with a servant's heart.  (See Ephesians 5) And the wife holds her husband up in deep respect as we would serving the Lord.  Know that you are loved deeply by our God, so take time out today to nourish that love between Him and you...  in prayer and in the Word - just like you would with your spouse, a two-way conversation.

Speaking of cherishing...  here's Kevin and Leah!  

(The photo is not mine, just the edit)

How Do I Love Thee?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

 

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! ---and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Rabbit trail... Valentine's Day Past

It 's time to put up my Valentines decorations.  My absolute favorite is hanging the heart swag.  

It was made many years ago by little fingers, and I treasure it.

While my husband would be busy at the occasional evening church meetings, the kids and I would want to be busy about the Lord's work, too, just like Daddy.  We would work on some project together to serve others, sometimes enlisting the help of friends whose daddies may be busy serving as well.  We would have such fun!

This project started as care packages to college kids:  homemade goodies and homemade crafts - to brighten their day and to remind them that the Lord loves them.  Some kids helped with the valentine cookie baking, and others started on the paper hearts.  Each heart had part of the love-is Scripture from 1 Corinthians 13, and  then hearts were decorated with sparkles, stickers and any bauble they could find.   Two holes were punched on top then strung on a thin ribbon.

The swag was so incredibly cute and precious that after the care packages were done, we later started on one for our family.

For our family's swag, we worked on one heart per day, after dinner for devotion time.  One boy read the passage from the Bible.  And to learn how to use the concordance, another son would look up the characteristic to find more verses in the Bible. For instance, if it was about boasting, "boast" would be looked up, and then we would read more about what God said about boasting. Sometimes we would also look up in the dictionary what a word actually means. While the reading and research went on, another would start cutting out a heart and write down the verse.  And another would get to decorate.


We were able to memorize this portion of Scripture by the time we completed this daily project because we would review each day, starting with the first heart, adding another as we went along.


For many years during February, we used this swag to help with our devotion time, looking up each Scripture and reviewing what these meant.  One highlight for me was asking the kids which of the love characteristics they could see in each other - so encouraging!  And as a growing challenge, individually we would  pick out a part of love that perhaps we wanted to work on personally, with the Lord helping us.

My mom once told me after I married that "once a mom, always a mom".  She had just called to check on how I was doing and had been praying for me.


Now as a mom, I totally get it.  A mom's love has been described as ferocious as a she-bear.  It's strong and unfailing. I think that's a gift from God... as a reminder to us how great is the Father's love  for us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are!  He has a ferocious love for us, too.  So great is this love that it sent His Son (whom He loved!) to the cross to bring us close to Him.


How high and long and wide and deep is His love! His love for you never fails.

Check it out for yourself.  Here are God's own words about His love for you:  Titus 3:4-7 -  Jeremiah 31:3.
Read of the Father's love for you in Psalm 103 (a favorite of mine).  The verses proclaiming His love for us are plentiful; perhaps get out that concordance and dig in! Here's one more that is just amazing to think about:  Zephaniah 3:17.

How is the Lord reminding you of His love in His Word?