A Valentine’s Day Post: If I Don’t Have Love

                  At the risk of sounding corny, I’m just going to come on out and say it: Love is everything. It really is just everything. It’s what makes life worth living, what makes the world turn round, what makes the sun shine, etc. I love love!

                  Yeah, someone’s in the valentine’s mood, sorry!

                  All right, so love is great, but what’s my point? Well, the thing is, it bothers me that most people just associate Valentine’s Day with love between couples. Now that’s all well and good, but there are so many other types of love. There’s the love between friends, between parents and their children, between family members, etc. Why aren’t those kinds of love celebrated on Valentine’s Day? Sometimes they are, such as in elementary school where children make valentines for their classmates and parents. Why stop at elementary school, though? I think these different kind of loves should be celebrated more, and here’s why:

                  Because all kinds of love stem from one source: God’s love.

                  God’s love shines through us every time we love someone else; whether it’s the love we have for our parents, our friends, or our boyfriend/girlfriend. God commands us to love, not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day. Without love, there really is no point to anything. Like the Bible says:

“¹If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13: 1-3)

                  Our actions don’t mean anything unless we do them with love. Love really is everything because God is love and the act of loving is just one of the ways of sharing Him with the world. However, that love shouldn’t be restricted to Valentine’s Day, and definitely not just within couples. Everyone deserves to love and be loved.

                  So, this Valentine’s Day, I want to show God’s love not just to my Valentine, but to my family, my friends, my fellow church members, and anyone I meet.

Psst...Check out this song I love to celebrate the day!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

A Valentine’s Day Post: Knowing about Love

Like the famous song by Foreigner, I think that we all, at least at some point in our lives, want to know what love is. I know I’ve always personally wanted to know. Yet, if I ask fifty different people what love is, I’ll get fifty different answers. A young girl in her first relationship might tell me that love is amazing while a heartbroken guy might tell me the opposite. A mother might tell me that love is family while a single woman might tell me love is friendship. There are even people who say love doesn’t exist at all.

            I don’t agree with any of them.

            If I had to give one word to describe love, it would this: God.

I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to love as much as God does. He loves me, even when I don’t love myself. He loves that annoying kid I never liked. He loves that teacher I never got along with in high school. He loves that random guy I bumped into today. He loves my ex-boyfriends. He loves my friends. He loves my family. He loves everyone I have never loved, everyone I have once loved, everyone I currently love, and everyone I will ever love.

I wish I could love like that.

Sometimes I find myself thinking that love is a paradox. Love is complicated and simple. Love is easy and difficult. Love is happy and sad. Love is good and bad. I believe that God breaks that paradox, though. For God, love is simple, easy, happy, and good. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s how I want to see love as too. I want to love just like God does.

I think that to love is to feel God. There’s this connection between loving God and loving others. When I love my parents, my siblings, my friends, I feel what it is that God feels for me. That affection, protectiveness, worry, care, and happiness I feel for them is what God feels towards everyone. On the flip side, though, when it comes to loving others, there are times I find it difficult to. For example, if a friend makes me angry, I find it difficult to love them when I feel like the Hulk. But then I think about how God loves me no matter what, even if I’ve done something to make Him angry, and that helps me to love again. I learn to love God through my love for others and learn to love others through God’s love.

            To me, God simply is love and, personally, I don’t think that there could be any greater valentine than that.