Valentine’s Day when I was a kid…
I remember stuffing cut-out cards into a brown paper sack, each one signed and taped with a candy heart.
Like everyone else in my fifth-grade class, I bought cards and hearts to share. For most, it was about the candy. For others, it was about the hearts. For me, it was about the candy.
Fast-forward nineteen years, and I’m holding my daughter, born on Valentine’s Day. It was, next to my birth, my marriage and the brith of my son, one of the greatest days of my life.
I love Valentine’s Day. I don’t like the commercialization of love, but I love giving and receiving love. “Love is all you need,” The Beetles sang. “God is love,” announced the Apostle John. We are created to love. But we don’t know how to love like we should. Yet God loves us, because God is love.
God loves us in Jesus. And Jesus loves us us through others. And the Spirit helps us to love others. God’s love cultivates love.
On Valentine’s Day many people will seek to find love, manufacture love, and pretend to love. But I will choose to love in response to the love that God has shown to me.
I see God’s love in Jesus, my parents, my wife, my Valentine Day daughter and my son. I see God’s love among my church, in friends, and strangers. And I seek to see more.
May you seek to see more of God’s love.
And may Valentine Day be a dart from God’s heart to yours, with a message that says “be mine.”
A nice response to all the people I saw on Facebook yesterday dissing Valentine’s Day. Thanks, Chris.
Valentine’s Day can be a lonely day for many — even people with loved ones in their lives. Maybe that occurs because of the pressure placed on us by the commercialization of the holiday. However, I think Valentine’s Day is an excellent opportunity to remember God’s love for us and then to share it with others. I’ve heard it said that “love isn’t love until you give it away”. There is a certain truth to that statement, don’t you think? Love should be a verb and not a noun… It is as you wrote above: “God’s love cultivates love.” He is continually pouring it out on us every day! What a blessing! And so, like you, I’m choosing to actively love in response to the love that God has and is showering on me. Blessings!