I just got really excited about Valentine's Day this year--Last night the Theta Xi house at Tech was bustling with Valentine's preparations. One guy was building his girlfriend a jewelry box and making plans to make her dinner and take her to see a sappy chick flick--even though the other guys made fun of him for doing it. Another guy was creating a collection of notes to slip to his girlfriend during the day and was taking her out to dinner. His girlfriend had her own plans to creatively give him a sort of "save the date" for having a nerf war with each other. Marshall asked me about Valentine's Day last week before I'd remembered it was coming up and made plans with me for when we'd celebrate; he took me out to dinner last night to a restaurant that has sentimental meaning for me. It was really sweet, and we had a great time at dinner and hanging out with his friends!
Last week, my mom mailed Valentine's packages to all my cousins who are in college. And this morning, I woke up to a Valentine's Day package from my mom--she had put together packages for us all (me, Mary Anna, and my dad) in pretty bags with candies we like in them. As we were all opening our packages, Mary Anna showed me the cookies she'd made for her boyfriend that spelled out "Be my Valentine" with icing. About that time, her boyfriend called and told her to come outside to where he had pulled up in front of our house--he had woken up early to bring her flowers and a framed picture of them.
I just love when people make things special! Valentine's Day can either be stupid/corny, OR you can embrace all the dumb stuff and take advantage of the opportunity to do something special for someone else. When I get stressed about wedding planning, I try to remind myself how special all the planning makes that day. My mom is great at making things special for other people--she's done it for me my whole life! And I generally take it for granted and consider all the "extras" to be unnecessary. But little details are part of making something really special.
I also think of how God called Israel to consecrate themselves before big events--I think of, in particular, before he gave them the law and made a covenant with them in Exodus 34. He calls them to change their lifestyle for a particular time and to do extra things that he doesn't normally ask them to do. Because of that, my prayer in all the preparations for our wedding is that God would be preparing my heart for what is ahead. When step back to think about it, I am thankful for the meticulous details of planning a wedding. All the time spent preparing emphasizes the weight of what Marshall and I are about to do--and I am thankful that both our culture and my family agrees that a wedding is an occasion to celebrate! So it's easy for me to complain about how I have to put so much time into wedding-related details that don't seem to matter, but I pray that the Lord would remind me when I want to complain that it is SO worth-it to go to great lengths in preparation for a truly special occasion.
