Love is dangerous...

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness…We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it. What I know about love and believe about love and giving ones heart began in this.

-The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

Reflection on Valentine's Day

I think that people fall into three basic categories on Valentine’s Day: those who like sending and/or receiving sappy cards, those who like sending and/or receiving sarcastic cards, and those who would prefer to ignore the entire day and prefer to keep Hallmark out of the loop. Admittedly, the three categories may have some overlap as we may alternate between feelings from year to year, or even minute-by-minute but as this really isn’t an essential point to ponder, I will move on…

Those who know me very well know that I am not particularly a fan of Valentine’s Day and probably fit mostly in the second category above. When I was younger there was a time when I carefully crafted handmade valentines for friends and family, but at some point in my childhood I learned that Valentine’s Day was more than just giving out Valentines. As I progressed through middle school and high school, I learned that the “holiday” was an opportune time to send flowers to your crush or significant other. 

 Whether or not I got involved in the flower exchanges it was difficult to miss that certain girls got more flowers than others and flowers from certain guys were more important than flowers from others.

The idea the Valentine’s Day was an opportunity to show love to those I care about was slowly replaced by the idea that Valentine’s Day didn’t have much of a purpose if I didn’t have someone to whom to send a carnation or a box of conversation hearts. I can’t really speak for the girls but I don’t think those who went home without a flower enjoyed the day either. To be sure, the gifts were items of little value but the feelings that accompanied them-those of acceptance and desirability or those of rejection and disappointment-often remained long after the candy was gone and the flowers wilted and thrown away. For some, they perhaps have remained to this day.

“But that is just a childhood remembrance,” you say, “What difference does it make in my life now?” Perhaps it makes no difference to some but I think that many of us approach Valentine’s Day (and more significantly, relationships in general) with some of the same feelings that we experienced in those adolescent valentine exchanges. Hopefully we look and act very differently than we did as children but Valentine’s Day can bring forth feelings that we might rather ignore. Don’t believe me? Do you identify with the girl who receives so many flowers from admirers that she has a huge bouquet or perhaps the girl who goes home year after year empty-handed? Do you identify more with the guy who buys flowers for a special girl, knowing she will be the envy of her girlfriends, or instead with the guy who doesn’t feel that any girl would appreciate or perhaps even accept any small token of interest from him?

In other words, on this Valentine’s Day are you more apt to feel loved or unloved, desired or overlooked?  

All too often for many of us, Valentine’s Day serves as a reminder of what we don’t have and perhaps what we may even feel we don’t deserve. But maybe we get it wrong by looking too closely at ourselves. Who said that we deserve love anyway? Scripture is pretty clear that all of us fall short of the standard that God has set for us and the only thing we deserve according to His law is death. …but that isn’t the end of the story either. John 3:16 explains: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” In other words, we deserved death, but God gives us love. 

So what does this mean for you Valentine’s Day? Is it significant to you that God, who formed us and knows all of talents and our faults, loves us with such passion? Should it affect how we love others and receive love this Valentine’s Day? How about how we view and love ourselves? Does the knowledge that you are loved by the Creator who calls you ‘wonderfully made’ give you hope that He could bring someone into your life to whom He has a given a glimpse of the man or woman He is forming you to be? (For some of you married or soon-to-be-non-singles reading this, He may have already done so)

Perhaps Valentine’s Day is just an opportunity for florists, candy makers, restaurateurs, and card companies, or perhaps it is an opportunity to let God love us and to love those around us to the best of our ability with His help. The decision is up to you and it isn’t one to make only on Valentine’s Day, but every day.