Love Like Fishes and Loaves

Several years ago, instead of going to an expensive restaurant for                        Valentine´s Day, I invited the man I was seeing for dinner at my house.                     I asked him to wear old clothes and bring along a few items of clothing that needed repair.  After dinner, we chatted on the front porch while he put a fresh coat of paint on the flower boxes and I rocked on the porch swing and mended his clothes.  We gave the money we saved to Leaping Stone, an organization that is building a school in Ghana.  On that day, love multiplied like fishes and loaves.

The Valentine´s Gift (A Story Overheard)

“We weren`t a touchy-feely family,” he said.  “If you wanted to bug my mom, you hugged her.  Her shoulders would stiffen up like rocks.  I never learned how to express my feelings.”

Like many men, he liked the holidays because buying things was the only way he knew how to show love. His gifts were always extravagant and often inappropriate.  One year, however, he was broke.

“Valentine´s day was just around the corner.  I out of a job and couldn´t seem to find work.  I was drinking a lot.  All I could afford to buy my wife was a dress from KMART.  It was horrible, cheap and tacky.  It cost me every dime I had.”

On Valentine´s Day, he had no money for booze, so he returned the dress to KMART and bought a bottle of gin instead.

“Honey, I got you the best Valentine´s present ever,” he told his wife. “I´m going to go to rehab.”

“Again?” she asked.