A Valentine's Day Surprise

At a prior job, I worked with a couple of very good men that I became close friends with.  Big Mac and Mr. Trivia were not only my co-workers, but also my lunch buddies, fellow baseball fans, and practical jokers.  I have always held the opinion that you should be able to have fun at work - and we did!  We worked hard and we had fun - often at the expense of each other.

One winter, Mr. Trivia decided to leave the icebox of northwest Iowa for a week-long vacation in sunny Florida.  He was due to return to work on February 14, and Big Mac and I were looking forward to his return.  Anytime someone is gone from the team, everyone else on the team winds up doing more work.  So we were anxious for Mr. Trivia to return to work.  Besides that, it was boring without him around.

On the 13th, Big Mac and I decided we should welcome Mr. Trivia back in style.  We discussed a few possible "Welcome Home" possibilities and settled on a good one.  Since he was returning on Valentine's Day, we would take advantage of the holiday to let him know how much we missed him.

We went to Walmart over the lunch hour and bought some valentine cards - of the Barbie variety.  We dug through the piles of papers on his desk until we found one with his signature on it.  By the way, that was no easy feat - Mr. Trivia's filing system consisted of a process called "throw it on a pile somewhere."  We scanned the nearly indecipherable scrawl from that piece of paper into the computer.  Then, with the utmost care, we fed each Barbie valentine through the printer - placing his signature right in the middle of the back of each valentine.  Since Mr. Trivia was single, we thought we might help him meet some of the young ladies in the company.  After everyone else went home, we went around the office, strategically placing a valentine on the desks of many of the known single women in the company.  We went home that night, knowing we had a productive day!

Mr. Trivia arrived at work the next day, freshly revived from his luxurious Florida holiday, and began reading his backlog of emails.  Within a few minutes this cute young lady walks up to him and thanks him for the Valentine's Day card.  He immediately denied giving her a valentine, but she insisted he did.  She told him, "It has your signature on the back!"  He retorted, "That's can't be my signature," and he grabbed the valentine from her and looked at the back.  Then he got a funny look on his face and said, "Yes it is."  All day long, single women were wandering over to Mr. Trivia's desk to thank him for his thoughtfulness.  Later in the day he told Big Mac and I that he was never leaving his checkbook laying around when we were nearby!  I wonder how he knew it was us...

The Bible is God's love letter, or valentine, to us.  Through His Word, God opens His heart to us so we can see who He is and understand His character. His love was demonstrated for us on the cross.  Jesus died on the cross to pay the full penalty for our sins.  John 3:16 says, "For God loved the world (us) in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone (even you!) who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."  Mr. Trivia's valentine cards were forged and didn't reflect his feelings toward any of those women.  But God's love cannot be forged - His Son did what no one else could do, He proved God's love on the cross by rising from the dead.  His resurrection proved God's Word, and His love, is true and can be trusted.