Valentines Day 5 Years Ago

February 14, 2011, just 11 days after our final goodbye,my first Valentine's Day without my sweet husband of almost 34 years, was a very difficult day for me. Valentine's Day had always been a special day at our house, a day when we celebrated our love for each of our children as well as each other. It had become a tradition of mine to make individual heart-shaped pizzas for all our family and to share cards and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and flowers and just to let each other know how much we loved each other. This year, though, we tried to express our love for each other as a family, but we were all hurting, missing the father and husband we had always shared the day of love with. And I was feeling that void so much at that time. That day Peter was looking for some papers and had gone out to our truck to look in the glove compartment. While he was looking, he came across an envelope that had some directions to an address written on the outside. He opened it to see what it was and found a very special surprise. I think he wasn't sure how to let me know what he had found, so he brought it in the house to me and asked me what it was. I, of course, looked at the envelope and saw the writing and recognizing the directions, told him it was how to get to my brother's house. I didn't think much about it. I at some point, maybe even several years back, had written the directions on the envelope and stuck it in the glove compartment so we could find his house when we went there. But when I looked inside the envelope, I couldn't believe what I was looking at! I found a beautiful valentine card to me from my Ken. It was a card he had given me in the past, but it was like I had received it for the very first time. I stared at it in unbelief for a few moments!. My husband was gone, and yet I received a Valentine from my one and only valentine on Valentine's Day! Since the grief I was experiencing was so new and fresh, the card made me cry. I cried because my husband was telling me he loved me from the grave. I cried because I missed him so much. I cried because it made me mad that he wasn't there to tell me in person. It made me mad that I could not give him a valentine like I had for the past 34 years. It made me mad that Peter found the card that made me cry so much and made me mad and sad and lonely and happy all at the same time. That's how grief is. It's a roller coaster of emotions that you think you just can't stand another minute. But the Lord is there to help you through and you do make it. As I came to realize, and as I look back on that day now, I know what a special surprise blessing that card was (and still is). Do I think it was just a coincidence that Peter found my Valentine card on Valentine's Day? No, he could have been looking in that glove compartment any other day. And why did he open the envelope when it just looked like something I had scribbled some notes on? It made me realize that my Friend, Jesus, was in control of those circumstances. He knew I needed to hear how much my husband loved me that Valentine's Day when I was feeling so lost and unloved without him. He knew I needed to know that He knew how I felt and cared enough to send me that cherished Valentine card. I will never forget that first Valentine's Day five years ago when God sent me a Valentine to let me know how much He loved me, when He sent me a Valentine from my Valentine to let me know how much he loved me. What a wonderful, loving Friend I have!!