Summary: <br> Today is the designated day of love. But how many of us know, the high expectations of today often lead to major disappointment? Valentine’s Day is not a globally celebrated holiday, so just in case you’re listening from a country where all of this is new, let me explain. Today is a day most men dread because they feel whatever they do to show their love for their lady will not be enough, and it’s a day most women get their hopes built up for the ultimate demonstration of love, however she speaks in code, never really asking for what she wants. He says “do you want flowers?” She says “no, I totally don’t need flowers.” What he doesn’t understand is she is saying “yes, I want flowers!”<br> It’s woman code. “Nahhhh babe, you don’t need to buy me anything to prove your love” translates into DUDE YOU SHOULD TOTALLY BUY SOMETHING AND MAKE SURE YOU WRITE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IN A CARD.<br> Today is the day kids exchange Valentine’s cards and young love is professed. I remember my girls coming home in elementary school and bragging when the cutest boy in school clearly gave them the largest card in the pack. I also remember my 13 year old son spending every penny he had saved on the biggest teddy bear he could find, chocolates and flowers and balloons for a girl he had been talking to for a week. He didn’t know which she would like most, so he bought it all. She stopped talking to him 3 days later and he was sorely disappointed over all the money he had wasted.<br> Ahhhh, the day of love sure has become fussy hasn’t it? Before I dive fully into our special Valentine’s Day devotional, let me give all my lady friends, my gal pals, my girl gang, my sister tribe the best possible advice I have for today: DROP THE EXPECTATIONS. Expect nothing. Be grateful for everything. And let this day be more about you lavishing love on others than receiving it yourself.<br> Girl, you are loved every darn day. You are highly favored and greatly treasured. Today is no different. You are always the recipient of the unstoppable, relentless, powerful love of the almighty. Now just let his love flow through you and let it soak every one you come in contact with today. You know how a dog shakes when he’s wet, successfully soaking everything around him? Yes, let that be you. You are saturated in God’s love, shake it onto others today and share what you got! Let no one walk away from you today untouched by what God has covered you in. LOVE.<br> As a little girl, my Aunt CC always bought me a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. It was the mixed chocolates where every one was a bit of a mystery until you bit into it. There was a dilemma in that box of chocolates. I loved the caramel ones. I knew they were always square. But the orange cream ones were also square. It was like a trick to get you to bite into the worst one, thinking it was the best one. You never quite knew what you were going to get.<br> Forest Gump said it well, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”<br> Isn’t that life? Some days you get your favorite, and other days you feel like you get the worst. And somehow this loving, all knowing, all powerful God of ours is the giver of them both.<br> You know, if I were in charge of the Russell Stover’s candy company, I would have never made orange cream chocolates. That stuff just ain’t right. And while we’re at it, I wouldn’t really make the strawberry cream either. Just the caramels and toffee. That’s all you would get!<br> And guess what, my box of chocolates would be kinda boring wouldn’t it? Oh you would be guaranteed to get the good stuff, but where’s the excitement in that?<br> Have you ever played bean boozeled? It’s the cruel game of jelly beans.
