February 14th.
Valentine’s Day.
It's the day of adoration.
It's the day of love.
The day when couples everywhere celebrate the one thing they have most in common: love.
It involves her favorite dress, his favorite coat, handcrafted dinners, day-long adventures, candle-lit tables, long drives, squealing laughter, passionate kisses, rose-infused air, and everything and anything else under the moon that they need to show the other person just how much they adore them.
But why must we limit this day of keeping for the most beautiful phenomenon on this planet to a romantic kind of love?
I can’t even begin to count the number of posts I read on Facebook and Twitter and all over the Internet about the dreaded “Single Awareness Day” that crept to their doorstep, and how they had no intention on answering that ringing doorbell anytime soon.
It’s disheartening to say the least - as if love has only been associated in their lives with those they’ve been romantically attracted to. Those who gave up on them. Those who wronged them. Those who slapped their efforts of trying in the face.
But I would love to challenge this philosophy.
How crazy would it be to celebrate this day as a single man or woman by going out of your way to honor those who you love?
Your best friends.
Your parents.
Your brother or sister.
Maybe even just a complete stranger.
How radically different would your perspective be on a day that normally may hold bitterness?
I look around me, and I am surrounded by those who have gone out of their way to prove their love to me daily. And there is so much in my heart that wants to explode with fireworks of joy, because I can’t imagine being loved by anyone else than my closest friends and my family.
Does that mean I haven’t been burned in my life?
Absolutely not.
But what a groundbreaking reality - that love "keeps no record of wrongs.” (1 Cor 13:5)
So here is my challenge to you, dear reader.
Whatever love has thrown at you. Whatever love has done to your fragile heart. What better day to free yourself of that bitterness than the day of love?
Today’s the day to release it all.
Take a deep breath. Look around you. Because I guarantee there is a whole team of people cheering you on in every part of your life. Because they love you.
And maybe you have to look closer, but indeed, right there is a love who rejoices over you with singing, constantly.
A love who gave it all for you.
A love whose everlasting embrace can’t be matched.
A love that pursues you.
A love that truly never fails you.
A love that is proud to love you.
Let go of your false misconceptions of a skewed love, cling to the everlasting kind, and begin to watch and see as those gates of hurt and resentment and anger drop from your guarded heart.
Beautiful things happen in the presence of true love. So ask yourself in what ways you’ve never loved before, and I dare you, love in that way. Right here. Today.
Let go, dear friend.
Let love.
