February has a way of making us think about love.
Not the movie‑script kind. Not just roses and reservations and the perfectly timed card. But the kind of love that actually shows up — year after year, season after season — and quietly holds everything together.
As we were putting this month’s issue together, I realized almost every story we’re sharing has to do with love in one form or another.
On our cover, Jamie and Carol Loeb remind us what enduring love really looks like. Thirty‑one years of marriage. Building a life, raising daughters, serving their community — and then walking through unimaginable loss together. Their story isn’t about perfection. It’s about choosing one another again and again, even when grief enters the room and changes everything. It’s a beautiful reminder that the strongest love is often the quietest.
Greg Budell takes us back to first love — that unforgettable “that girl,” the one we all remember, the one who taught us something about longing, courage, timing, and growing up. It’s funny and tender and nostalgic, and it reminds us how love leaves fingerprints on every season of our lives.
We even travel with Jeff Barganier to a natural bridge that becomes a bridge to memory, regret, humor, and reflection — and somehow circles back to the simple truth that love still happens best when we look up from our phones and into someone’s eyes.
And tucked inside this issue is a beautiful reminder that even long‑married couples can fall in love all over again — not by going backward, but by paying attention, being kind, trying again, and building something new with the people we’ve become.
As I read through all of it, I couldn’t help but think about my own marriage. Some of you may not know this, but over the last couple of years, I’ve walked through a battle I never expected — stage‑three colon cancer in 2023, and then this year, cancer returning in my liver. There have been long drives to MD Anderson. Hard conversations. Waiting rooms. Tears we didn’t plan on shedding. Nights when fear crept in quietly and refused to leave. And in all of it, one of the clearest gifts God has given me has been my wife, DeAnne.
When life strips things down to what really matters, you learn quickly what you can’t afford to lose. You learn what love actually is. It’s not dramatic. It’s not flashy. It’s walking side‑by‑side into doctors’ offices. Holding hands in silence. Praying when words run out. Choosing faith when the future feels uncertain. Laughing when you can. Crying when you need to. Trusting that God is still writing a good story, even when you can’t see the next chapter.
This month’s issue celebrates all of that. First love. Long love. Love tested by grief. Love rediscovered. Love that heals. Love that stays.
Wherever you find yourself this February — newly in love, decades into marriage, missing someone, healing from loss, or learning how to love again — I hope these pages remind you of something simple and powerful: Love doesn’t expire. Love doesn’t run out of seasons. And sometimes, the deepest love is the one that grows strongest when life gets hardest. From our family to yours, happy Valentine’s Day!