I love Love.

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite days of the year.

I love all of the pink and red and hearts and construction paper valentines and chalk heart candies and on and on... I just LOVE Valentine's Day. :)

We had a great V-day here in Florence. My teammate Marti hosted a little party at her house for our team as well as several of our Italian friends. We had LOTS of heart shaped cookies and cupcakes and tons of other food.

It was really fun to share the time with our Italian friends. The longer that I am here, the more encouraged I am by the real friendships that are developing between myself and Italians. It is so exciting to share life with them - inviting them to things we do and being invited to things that they do...Just exciting to really have friends here. :) That's why we are here...to build relationships with Italians and share Jesus within those relationships. Be praying for the relationships that I have as well as the initiation of new ones. Pray that the lives of these Italians would be changed by the power of the gospel.

Images.

It's been a little over a week since our team got back from our mid-year conference in Nerja, Spain. The conference was for Agape staff in Europe, Russia and the Middle East. It was a great time of being refreshed as well as challenged for minstry this next semester.

One of my favorite things in life is to sit outside in the sun and look at nature. I'm a bit of an introvert and a major internal processor so there is something so calming and refreshing about just sitting by myself and allowing my mind to stop spinning and just take in the beauty of Creation.

This conference definitely provided that for me. I spent a lot of time out on the sand and rocks sitting right by the sea soaking up the sun just enjoying being alive and getting to be at such an overwhelmingly beautiful place. I loved Spain! Part of its appeal may have been that I was coming from dark, cold, rainy, noisy Florence...but Spain was so serence and warm and just exactly what I needed.

Other than the beautiful scenery and time to relax, another favorite thing about the conference was the teaching. One of our national leaders here in Italy - Gary Runn - led us in a time of studying the Bible each day. His teaching is always great, but one thing he talked about that really stuck with me was the concept of being an image bearer.

God created us each in his image with the purpose of bearing his image. But so often we are so consumed with building our own image that we do not bear the image of God.

This really wasn't the main point to Gary's talk, but I haven't stopped thinking about it.

How much time and energy do I spend trying to build my own image? Worrying about others perceptions and opinions of me....Am I more concerned that when people see me they see a put-together polished image I have created of myself, or that they see an image of Christ?

This concept is related to what the Lord has been teaching me all year about my brokenness and the beauty of being a jar of clay. When I allow His grace and perfection to shine through my weakness and sin, rather than trying to cover those things up and display a perfect image of myself, He is glorified. He uses my weakness to show His strength. My flaws to show His perfection. And as I allow those cracks to show and He shines through them, the image people see when they see me is not an image of myself, but rather an image of Christ.