The V-Day that Changed it All

So did you see my title? Are you waiting for some romantic story of how my husband proposed to me or something? Well, you aren't going to read it here, he actually proposed on ground hogs day, but anyway... this is a different kind of Valentine's day story.

It was my sophomore year of high school. I was excited as I had just completed driver's ed. I felt like I was starting to come into my own and felt over all pretty good about myself. I had friends, was involved in a lot of different activities, life really wasn't too bad. And in the dreaded gym we were even playing volleyball, something I wasn't half bad at... but one game changed things a lot.

Let's just say, I like to win and I hate seeing people just stand there and watch the ball drop or even worse running into each other both trying to get the ball. So I was trying to encourage my team to actually call it, by reminding them to "Call it!" Well, one girl on my team didn't like this very much and said something, to which I replied, "well when people start calling it, I will stop saying that".. like I said, I was coming into my own and was pretty sure of myself.

Well I crossed the wrong person. After that this girl decided to make my life as miserable as she could. "Why is she wearing that?" she would say out loud during class. "Oh look what she is doing now." Just constant remarks. My newly emerging self-esteem was quickly taking a tumble. And to be honest I was scared. This girl had some cousins in school, who let's just say didn't run with the best crowd and would be the type of people who would totally jump someone in the parking lot. I didn't know what to do. I tried to avoid her as much as possible. Luckily, I only seemed to see her that one hour a day, but that one hour was awful and it went on for months.

I remember one night, I was up in my room alone, crying and praying about what to do. I felt like I should open my scriptures. I opened up my Bible to Matthew chapter 5 and read verse 44 "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." That night I prayed for strength to be kind and I am sure also prayed that her heart would somehow be softened and the teasing would stop.

I had recently bought a bunch of little Valentines boxes, the little cheap card kinds that you can fill with candy that I planned on giving to my friends... and I then knew what I had to do.

It was time for class, we were now in the health portion of gym, so in a class room setting. I came into the classroom with my bag of valentines. I handed a few to my friends then walked over to this girls desk, placed one on her desk said "Happy Valentines Day" and walked away. I am sure my heart was racing a million miles and I dare not look her direction.

After that the teasing stopped. No, we did not become best friends-come on this isn't an after school special-in fact I don't think we ever spoke again.. but the teasing stopped.

A little box of Valentines day candy changed my life, at least my life at the time.