"Happy Valentine's Day!" I shouted, flinging red paper hearts into the audience. I raced down the aisle with a goofy grin on my face. "It's Valentine's Day at VBS!" I absorbed the kids' reactions laughingly. The older kids laughed hysterically at me. The younger ones looked at me with an expression of horror as if I had turned insane before their very eyes. "Happy Valentine's Day, Pastor Matthew!" I cried, returning to the stage once more.
Pastor Matthew stared at me incredulously. "What are you talking about, Jaquelle?"
"Well," I explained matter-of-factly, the grin never leaving my face, "today, in VBS, we're going to be learning about connecting with love. I connected with love ... and I got Valentine's Day! Love, Valentine's Day. Get it?" Pastor Matthew continued looking at me as if I had two heads.
"Jaquelle, first of all, Valentine's Day isn't in July; it's on February 14! Second of all, Valentine's Day is good because it encourages you to love and be loving, but that's not the kind of love that we're going to be talking about today. We'll be talking about God's love. We're going to learn about stepping out in faith and connecting with love."
If you haven't caught on yet, this was the skit that Pastor Matthew and I performed at this morning's Worship Rally for Day 2 of Vacation Bible School - the Big Apple Adventure. Yesterday we learned about connecting with faith and today was connecting with love! Our Scripture verse was 1 John 4:19 - "We love because He first loved us." Today was a beautiful reminder of the everlasting love of God and the grace that He has so mercifully bestowed upon us. I think we always need to be reminded that we didn't love God first; it was Him and then us. Christ chose His death on the cross out of love for us long before we ever knew what love was.