February 14… so what?

Valentine’s Day, why do we celebrate it? 

In elementary school we decorated shoe boxes and put slits in the top hoping that your box would  have lots of cards in it and hopefully, one from that special person in the class that you are sure doesn’t even know you are alive! As we get older it gets more elaborate and people graduate to balloons and boxes of candy or a dinner out. 

Let’s talk about how it all got started!

According to one legend, (recorded by Borgna Brunner in Valentine Day History) Claudius II had prohibited marriage for young men, claiming that bachelors made better soldiers. Valentine continued to secretly perform marriage ceremonies but was eventually apprehended by the Romans. Valentine, imprisoned by Claudius, fell in love with the daughter of his jailer. Before he was executed, he allegedly sent her a letter signed “from your Valentine.” He was martyred for refusing to renounce his religion. 

Now you know.

There is a song on my playlist that has a phrase I agree with, it says, “Those three words, said too much, and not enough”, I agree with that.

A young man tells a girl he loves her, his ardor has more to do with his sex drive than giving his life for her. Ladies are not guiltless either, the word Love is bandied around to receive favors from the man who really believes she means it!

Do I sound cynical? Being a person who has talked to people on both sides of that scenario, I have found it to be true. 

Am I altogether tainted? 

No, I have grown up in a home where two people committed their lives to each other and it lasted 70 years until death parted them and I’m sure they are together again even now.

Not long before he died, I walked into their room and found mother sitting on my dad’s lap, her head on his chest, she was crying.  He was comforting her, speaking very gently, and telling her how much he loved her. I backed out, they never saw me, and I cried my own tears as I mentally took a picture of a scene I will never forget.

They took their vows seriously and time made them prove the words “better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live”. That scene made me think of another song says, “When I fall in love, it will be forever”.

1 Cor.13: 1-7 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

That scripture gives us the best description of what the word love really means.

There is one other scripture I can never read without my heart swelling within me bringing me to tears, Romans 8:35-39 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now you know that you are loved! I hope you have a wonderful love day!

5 Replies to “February 14… so what?”

  1. Is it right for a man to divorce his wife? Moses said so…

    Because of your hard heart…

    BUT IT WAS NOT SO IN THE BEGINNING.

    What was so, IN THE BEGINNING?

    God made a man. Everything in the world was GOOD, except one minor detail. It was not good for the man to be alone. So God carefully fashions him a mate.

    Contrast that with practically every romance you know, had, or ever heard of.

    Even the Valentines legend you site above basically pits two lovers AGAINST the world.

    But what if the world was pulling FOR the lovers? What if the lovers were gifts from God to one another?

    This is why I hold arranged marriage in high esteem. Not that it’s perfect, but it has within its very structure the possibility of BELONGING together by design bigger than the sum of its two parts. The whole village is invested in THIS union.

    Sure, some people manage to be successful despite the prevailing winds against them. It’s not unheard of, though rare. But there was another design FROM THE BEGINNING, and even Jesus points us there.

    Let God join us together. If you can discern that, then join his will. If your whole village discerns it, all the better.

    Like

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