The most important Valentines Day I ever had was 10 years ago. It was my senior year and a friend from high school had a party on Saturday the 13th. The next morning I woke up face down, sitting at a kitchen table that wasn’t mine and wondered what I was doing. Like, big-picture ‘what am I doing?’ I was a pretty self-confident 18-year-old and I knew that whatever I had done and whoever I was the night before wasn’t who I wanted to be.

The summer before that, in 2009, I heard about Jesus in a way that felt real and meaningful for the first time. I would have told you that I started a relationship with Jesus that summer. But the truth is, he had chosen me long before that week in June, and it wasn’t until that February morning at a kitchen table that I really chose him. In that quiet moment I talked to him about the parts of my life where I had been ignoring him. You’re not really choosing Love until you let him choose where he’s going to lead you.

For most of my life leading up to that Valentines Day, I tried to be good at everything so that a boy might finally love me. On the 13th, I made decisions I wish I wouldn’t have and ended up sleeping at a kitchen table, but early on the morning of the 14th, Love met me there. That morning changed a lot of things about the second half of my senior year, the college I would go to, the man I would marry, where we’d buy a house. That morning changed me and now my life revolves around Love.

I had meetings and doctors appointments and good conversations, but the most important thing I did this week was stand in a room full of teenagers and tell them that Jesus loves them. And maybe telling you that Jesus loves you through this blog post is up there, too. However long you’ve been searching for love, I hope it’s not much longer until you realize that Love has been searching for you.