Late last Saturday night, I was putting the final touches to the Sunday school lesson I would teach in only a few hours. But the lesson seemed incomplete. It lacked something, but what? Weary of studying, I opened a desk drawer to retrieve an offering envelope for the following day.

My eye caught a yellow sheet, beneath a stack of white papers, that seemed to contain my late husband's handwriting. Though there was no date, I knew from the shaky handwriting it had been written shortly before his death. In the note, he had included a poem entitled "Love," which was written by Roy G. Croft. I had given him the poem in 1965 as a birthday gift. Though I hadn't thought of it for years, he said he had read it almost daily. Here are some excerpts:

• "I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you."

• "I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out."

• "I love you for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart and passing over all the weak, foolish things you can't help dimly seeing there, and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful belongings that no one else had looked quite far enough to find."

• "I love you for helping me to make out of the lumber of my life not a tavern but a temple; out of the works of my every day not a reproach, but a song."

• "I love you because you have done more than any creed could have done to make me good, and more than any fate could have done to make me happy."

• "You have done it without a touch, without a word, without a sign. You have done it by being yourself ..."

That poem was what my lesson needed, but I was stunned by the timing. It was truly a valentine from my husband by way of the Holy Spirit.

Nell Mohney is a Christian author, motivational speaker and seminar leader. She may be reached at nellwmohney@comcast.net.