Happy Valentine's Day

There's a new 'gadget' on the right side of our blog - "I Pledge to Make God the Issue." It's a campaign started by Brad Bright, the son of the late Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade. If you click on the symbol it will take you to the web site where you can learn more about making God the issue in your life and in your world.



Our families, our communities, our nation, and our world need God more than ever. It has to start with each of us recommitting ourselves to putting God first.

I think this is appropriate because we're celebrating Valentine's Day today. The origins are clouded in the mists of time, but the most accepted legend is that Valentine was a priest during the time of Emperor Claudius II who outlawed marriage for young men because he believed young single men made better soldiers. Valentine defied the order and continued to marry young men and women in secret. When he was discovered Claudius had him put to death.

Many men and women over the ages have given their comfort and their lives to keep God as the issue in their lives.

I pray that we, the universal church of the living God, will look beyond our individual interests and comfortable lives so that we can keep the living God as the issue in our lives - regardless of the cost.

Happy Valentine's Day!

PS: Betty surprised me this morning with a Valentine's Day card and five Hersheys Dark Chocolate bars - my favorite. Naturally, I didn't get her a card, but, thank goodness, I had suggested the night before that we go out to eat today. We went to the Blue Cactus Grill which has excellent food.

I want to share the words of Betty's card because they touched me in a special way...

When it comes to Valentines
we make the perfect pair --
There's romance, love, and laughter
in the friendship that we share.

We care enough to listen,
to trust and understand,
To build a life together,
side by side and hand in hand...

We both know that we're lucky (blessed)
and we've got a good thing going,
Through ups and downs
and give and take,
our love just keeps on growing...

'Cause I bring out the best in you,
and you the best in me --
I guess it takes the two of us
to make a perfect "we."

That's nice.

Today is February 14 and if today is your Birthday then you share your day with: Drew Bledsoe (NFL quarterback), Meg Tilley (actress, "The Big Chill"), Gregory Hines (actor/dancer - "White Nights"), Carl Bernstein (Washington Post reporter who broke the Watergate story), Florence Hendeson (actress, Mom on "The Brady Bunch"), Vic Morrow (actor, "Combat"), Hugh Downs (TV pesonality), Mel Allen (voice of the NY Yankees), Jimmy Hoffa (union leader who disappeared), and Jack Benny (comedian).

On this day in 270 Valentine is martyred. In 1778 the American ship "Ranger" carried the recently adopted Star and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France. In 1848 President Polk became the first chief executive to be photographed while in office as he posed for Matthew Brady in New York. In 1859 Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state. In 1876 inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied separately for patents related to the telephone. (The US Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell the rightful inventor.) In 1899 voting machines for use in federal elections were approved by the U.S. Congress. In 1912 Arizona became the 48th state of the Union. In 1920 the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maude Wood Park. In 1940 the first porpoise born in captivity arrived at Marineland in Florida. In 1962 First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted a televised tour of the White House. It was the first public peek into the Presidential back rooms and bedrooms and drew a record audience of 80 million. And in 1972 the musical, "Grease," opened at the Eden Theater on Broadway.