A Better Sweethearts Message for Valentine’s Day–“Jesus is Mine”
A reposting from last year, but just as relevant today as ever.
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History of Sweethearts Candies
Did you receive any hard-to-swallow Valentine’s Day candy this year? Chances are if someone communicated “Be Mine” to you by means of the “Sweethearts method,” it may have passed it’s “best by” date over a year ago.
In 2019 the New York Times broke the sad news that explains this candy quandary:
Two weeks before Valentine’s Day, the Sweethearts candy shortage is acute. Many distributors have already sold out. And what candy remains is left over from last year — before its manufacturer, the New England Confectionery Company, or Necco, closed its factory doors.
Jacey Fortin, January 31, 2019
The Wall Street Journal elaborated on this confectionery catastrophe:
Candy lovers are searching for a new sweetheart this Valentine’s Day.
For the first time in over a century, the original conversation hearts aren’t rolling off conveyor belts by the millions. The debacle, caused by candy-maker Necco going out of business last year, has faithful fans buying up the last batch of Sweethearts brand hearts on the black market and looking for other ways to convey romantic sentiments—“Be Mine” or “UR Hot”—expressed so succinctly on the pressed-sugar Valentine’s Day candy.
Annie Gasparro, February 11, 2019
For over 150 years, the New England Confectionary Company has helped people share charming messages of love (or at least cuteness) with those nearest and dearest them. Without the tiny taglines, Valentine’s Day just won’t be the same.
Millions of folks across the country will be left love-letters-less and confused, unable to ask or be asked to, “Be Mine.” (Although a Brach’s brand version of conversation candy is available, for some, Necco Sweethearts and February 14th are synonymous, and substitutes simply won’t suffice.) This 38-year-old can’t remember a year not giving or receiving at least one of those hint-filled hearts.
This Love Keeps Calling Me
“Will you be mine?”
It’s not just a question we ask on Valentine’s Day. “Will somebody please love me?” That’s all I really need to know. That’s all you or I have ever really wanted to know.
For the past 12 years, I’ve been blessed to be married to the most incredible woman a guy could ever dream of– have loved and been loved fully. Even with my wife by my side on this February 14th, and every single day, my heart longs to love and be loved in a way that no mere words, not even any human connection could ever satisfy. A part of me always knows that no matter how good this human love is (or even becomes), there is something so much bigger and better out there that must find me, fill me.
My very life and existence depend on it.
This other love just won’t let me go. It keeps calling to me, “Be mine, and let me be yours.” This love is literally and entirely and utterly out of this world.
No Need for a Catchphrase
For far more than 150 years, there is one who has been and always will be communicating messages of his love– a true forever love. He will never sell out, never be silenced. His love will never expire.
Some of you are thirsty for this type of love. Those who should have loved you didn’t. Those who could have loved you didn’t. You were left at the hospital, the altar, with an empty bed. You have been left with the question: “Does anybody really truly love me?”
Please listen to heaven’s answer. [It is out of this world]
“God loves you. Personally. Powerfully. Passionately. Others have promised and failed. But God has promised and succeeded. He loves you with a true forever love.”
Max Lucado, Cast of Characters, p. 27
This true forever love, God has been diligently dispersing and describing to us in a way that no card or candy ever could. All over the pages of the biggest and best Valentine ever, God in his Word, his lasting love letter, leads me to know and believe, “I am his, and Jesus is mine.”
He has been delivering this message of love to us throughout time and in our time, through the person and work of Christ, culminating at the cross and now as he is crowned in glory.
The Best Part
Unlike we who have a limited quantity of love (and communication candies) to go around, he and his love are enough and will be enough for everyone, including you. Each of you can say this day and always, “I am his, and Jesus is mine.”
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations,
Ephesians 3:16-21for ever and ever! Amen.
There is nothing a million-dollar merger or big-time buyout can do to stop that message from getting through to me and to you. God’s message to you this Valentine’s Day (and always) is, “I loved you just as you are, filthy and dirty with sin; lives messed up and headed nowhere. I loved you so much that I came to you where you are – down and out, hopeless, helpless, and spiritually lifeless. I loved you enough to give you my very best, my darling, my precious one. I gave you my Jesus.”
“Jesus is Mine,” sounds like a great new Sweethearts message for 2020 and beyond. Before you head off to search for Sweethearts substitutes to profess your sentiments, listen to Jordan Kauflin sing, “Jesus is Mine”.
When all else (even Sweethearts candies) fails, HE still remains. “Jesus is mine.”
UPDATE: Conversation Hearts are coming back in 2020. A full new line will be printed in 2021. Learn even more about the history of Conversation Candy Hearts.
Mark Parsons
Originally from Montrose, Colorado, Mark served the family of believers at Christ the King Lutheran in Port Charlotte, FL from 2009-2013 and since January of 2014 has been serving as Pastor of School, Youth and Family Ministry at Faith Lutheran in Fond du Lac, WI. He and his wife Molly have three children, Jonas, Annabella, and Emmalyn. He enjoys dance parties with his children, working out in his basement with his wife, and running around Fond du Lac training for Tough Mudder or a marathon. Pastor Parsons and his family are faithful Denver Broncos fans in a sea of green and gold. In addition to his roles and responsibilities at Faith, Pastor Parsons is the chief content curator for Bread for Beggars and the director of Fuel Student Ministry.
