Welcome, friend! 

I’m so glad you’re here.

This week’s blog is rooted in one truth: love is an action. Love shows up in the doing as evidenced by God’s love shown to us. It’s in the listening, the serving, the forgiving, the sacrificing. Sometimes love looks big and brave. Other times, it looks like stirring something warm on the stove just because it will make someone smile.

This blog is a place for those everyday acts of love. The ones you can feel. The ones you can taste. The ones that say “I thought of you.”

And since Valentine’s Day is all about showing love (not just saying it), here’s a simple, cozy recipe you can make for someone you care about—or for yourself, because that counts too. 💕

Devotional

Love Carries

Dating a pilot came with many unique opportunities. Rarely did I get a call from Dan inviting me to dinner and a movie. Instead, the calls usually came with an invitation to fly to Memphis or a city in Florida to help someone with a flight—dinner included on the way back. Many of our early conversations took place in airplane cockpits rather than strolling through a park. It’s easy to talk when it’s just the two of you, the stars outside, and an occasional interruption from air traffic control.

On New Year’s Eve, just a few weeks after we met, Dan needed to fly his boss to New York City. With permission to bring me along, I got all dressed up in my new purple pants from The Limited and a bright, colorful sweater to match, knowing we would have dinner someplace fancy once the work was done.

As we landed at the Wilmington airport in the middle of a very cold winter night, Dan thought it would be fun to carry me off the plane. I had never been carried off a plane before—and so he did—until he didn’t. He dropped me.

We laugh about it now, but we weren’t laughing then. He was embarrassed, and my brand-new purple pants had a hole in the knee. What a sight we must have been.

Now, here we are thirty-four years later, and Dan is carrying me again. After breaking my foot in November, I did my best to use crutches to get up and down the steps from the garage into the house, but it just didn’t work. I remember saying to him, “What are we going to do? How will I get up the steps?”

He answered quietly, “I will carry you.”

We looked at each other and laughed, remembering that New Year’s Eve so long ago. He put his arm around my waist, picked me up, and step by step we made our way to the top. Three months later, Dan continues to carry me. Not once has he let me fall.

Thirty-four years separate these two moments. As I reflect on them, one thought keeps returning: This is what love does. Love carries.

Love carries the other.

Maybe, like me, you need to be carried in this season. Or maybe, like Dan, you are the one doing the carrying. One receives the love the other is giving. Carrying another is an honor.

It is also a picture of what God does for us when we cannot help ourselves. Being carried is a gift. It reflects our brokenness—our inability to do what only God can do.

God’s words in Isaiah 46:4 make this truth unmistakably clear:

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He,
I am He who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

The Hebrew word for carry in this passage is sabal. Sabal does not mean casual transport. It means strenuous effort—a shoulder bowed down. It is bearing the weight of another in order to lift them up. God bows His shoulder to pick us up and bear our weight.

And in doing so, He brings us close.

God promises that throughout our lifetime He will sustain us, rescue us, and carry us. All are vital, but the last feels especially personal. He puts His arms around us, lifts us up, draws us near, and carries us.

So if today you find yourself unable to stand on your own, know this: it’s a gift to be carried. And if you are strong enough right now to carry another, know that God’s love shines through you more than you may realize. Love shows up in the lifting, the bearing, the staying close.

This is what love does.  Love carries.

Chocolate Brigaderos

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• Assorted sprinkles and jimmies, for decorating
• Paper mini cupcake wrappers

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan, combine the butter, cocoa powder, and condensed milk.
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of the pan.
3. Remove from heat and let cool for about 5 minutes.
4. Scoop the warm chocolate mixture by the tablespoon and drop into a bowl of sprinkles.
5. Using a separate spoon, coat the mixture with sprinkles.
6. Once cool enough to handle, use your hands to roll into balls.
7. Place in paper wrappers.

✨ Delicious chilled or at room temperature!