My Candygram Message by Diane Stark from Brazil, Indiana
As I helped my kindergarten students read their Valentine cards from their classmates, I looked at the vase of red roses sitting on my desk. I can’t believe a guy I’ve never met sent me flowers, I thought. Eric lived 150 miles away. We’d matched through an online dating service a few weeks before and had spent hours talking on the phone. Both of us single parents, we made an easy connection. Our first in-person date was scheduled for the coming weekend. Was I ready to take that step?
I’d been devastated when my first marriage fell apart, and I worried I’d get hurt again. The risk was too great. I had to text Eric to cancel. I reached for my phone, but one of my students interrupted to hand me a present. “It’s a lollipop angel!” she said. Indeed she’d wrapped paper around the lollipop’s “head” to form wings. On one of them, she’d written, “Love one another because love comes from God. 1 John 4:7.” I kept my date with Eric.
This year, we celebrate our fifteenth Valentine’s Day, happily married. Our love is definitely a gift from the sweetest angel.
Overheard by Deborah Novak from Huntington, West Virginia
I’d moved to New York City to become an actress. Compared to my West Virginia hometown, the city moved at a head-spinning pace, with hordes of people everywhere. There was no privacy. Not in the subway, on the sidewalks or even inside my brownstone apartment. Sound traveled through the air shaft, so I could hear what was going on all over the building. Every day brought a blur of noisy neighbors, frustrating auditions and packed city streets. A breakup with my boyfriend was the final straw. One evening, I broke down in tears. “God, all I want is someone to love me!” I cried out.
A few days later, I got a phone call from John, a man I’d met briefly at a party my landlady had thrown. He asked me out. Had my prayer been heard? After an amazing date, I asked John why he seemed to call me out of the blue. “Your landlady heard your prayer through the air shaft and thought we’d make a cute couple.”
And we do. I’d like to tell my former landlady that our 37 years together have been one long answered prayer.
Lucky Penny by Dawn Casey from Baxter, Minnesota
February marked my twenty-sixth anniversary. My husband and I are young at heart (though my hearing isn’t what it used to be). On the morning we celebrated, I left the supermarket and spotted a penny on the pavement. I loved finding change that had been left behind. The only other person nearby was an employee, pushing a rackety row of carts through the parking lot.
I bent to grab it. The ping of another coin hitting the pavement rang in my ears. I couldn’t have heard that amid the clamor of the shopping carts, I thought. Yet there it was, a few feet away. This time, a quarter, seemingly fallen from the sky. I went home with 26 pennies from heaven, one for each year spent with my valentine.
Doubly Blessed by Izzy Rawashdeh from St. Petersburg, Florida
My husband, Muawea, and I were playing volleyball in the calm waters at Egmont Key, Florida, when I felt my wedding ring slip off my finger. We searched for hours with no luck and boated home, heartbroken. Muawea had designed the ring himself, with sapphires on either side of an infinity symbol, and surprised me with a proposal as soon as the ring was ready. It was the happiest day of my life.
I posted about the loss on the I Love St. Pete Facebook page. Jim Thobe, the president of the West State Archeological Society, reached out. “Other volunteers and I often use metal detectors to find lost items,” he said. We made plans to meet at Egmont Key.
Jim and another society member showed up as promised. After hours of looking, I was so upset that I decided to take a break. I took a walk, feeling hopeless, and returned to bad news. I struggled not to cry as we all headed back to our boats.
Then, right there on our boat, Muawea knelt in front of me. “Sometimes life just smiles at you,” he said—and surprised me just like he had the first time. They’d found the ring after all! My husband slid it back on my finger, on the second-happiest day of my life.
A Rose? For Me? by Pamela Hirson from Holbrook, New York
I walked along the aisles of takeout counters at the specialty market, looking for a prepared dinner for one. I hoped a nice meal would give me the lift I needed to make it through Valentine’s Day without a special admirer of my own. I settled on steak with roasted potatoes and veggies. And for dessert? I added a slice of cheesecake to my cart. Hardly like getting roses, but it will have to do. On my way to the registers, a young man stopped me. He extended a long-stem red rose. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Thank you,” I said, noticing the satchel of roses strapped to the man’s back. I looked around, expecting to see others with roses from what seemed to be an in-store floral promotion. No one else held a red rose. Nor were there any for sale in the market.
“What a beautiful rose,” the cashier said.
“A complete stranger handed it to me, and wished me a happy Valentine’s Day and disappeared in an instant.”
“Sounds like an admirer!” she said.
I laughed. More like a cherub with a quiver of roses.
Never Give Up by Donna Humphries from Sherwood, Arkansas
It was time to declare a moratorium on romance. At 25, I’d already been married once (if only for three months), and then I’d made the poor decision to date my divorce attorney. Besides, I had a son, Jason, to raise. I needed a new husband like a hole in the head. So I turned my love life over to God, and he gave me an unexpected response: a dream of me marrying a tall man with dark hair and a mustache. He looked like a young Burt Reynolds!
A week after the dream, at my Sunday school class for single parents, the teacher told me about a church member, Barry Humphries, who was divorced, with a young son. “I’ve been calling him, trying to get him to come to our class, but he doesn’t respond,” she said. “Why don’t you try?”
“I’m not going to call some random guy. He’ll get the wrong idea!”
My teacher smiled. “You won’t have to. There he is.” I turned around, and standing in the doorway was the man from my dream, down to the last detail. I stole glances at him throughout the class. When it came time to pick up our children from class, Barry introduced himself and asked if I’d be going to the evening service. We sat together that night, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.
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