I suppose that today being Valentines Day should make me think about love.  It does…especially when the cold, driving, rain deluged my shoes and stung my face on the wings of its cold wind.  To be honest, I do think about love even when its not Valentine’s Day.  I wonder what people think of it as society sells it as chocolate, flowers, diamonds, and even a spouse or ‘special friend’.  I often find myself saying I love coffee or that I love ice cream.  I even love my new apartment.  Really?  I can hear my childhood friends now, plainly singing out in their whiney voice, “then why don’t you marry it!”  Huh.

I taught my Thai students that love is not just an emotion, it’s a choice.  “What does that mean Ms. Colleen?”  Do you love your parents when they give you what you want?  “YES!”  Do you love your parents when they don’t give you want you want?  “Uh, no.”  That’s not love.  Quiet came from my students.

We also hear that love is 1 Corinthians 13: patient, kind, does not envy, always thinks the best…etc.  Yeah, that is true too.  Then I think, well, God is love.  What does THAT mean?  If God is love, how can I ever love?  Im not and never will be God…soooooo, that’s it, I can’t love, I can only be loved by the inventor of love…”In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10).

That’s it!  That is where the gospel is so fantastic!  The Father sent the Son to die for this lack of love to God and our neighbor.  By dying on the cross and rising again to pay our sin debt, He made a way for us to love God!  And HE is our way to love others!  Our ability of and to love is because of Christ, which is why our first love today and every day should be Christ.  Oh what a sweet joy this love is!  It is perfect love that sustains us when rain stings our face while our husband is deployed.  It is perfect love that brings joy when loved ones are sick with no cure or a cure that isn’t working.  It is perfect love when the perfect mate never comes.

And this love makes candy and a card found hidden beneath the seat of my husbands Japanese car that much sweeter.  It is this love that allows the communication marine the heart to let my husband use the only working phone to call his wife while she writes on a computer on Valentines Day.  The love of God, so rich and pure…

Happy Valentines Day!