How to Truly Appreciate Valentine’s Day This Year

Confession: I often glaze over Bible verses when I read them in a blog post.  Or most any other context outside of the Bible.  Often it’s the popular ones that keep re-surfacing over and over again.  Being raised in the church, I’ve heard them. I’ve read them.  I know them.  Move along.

I think that is probably human nature.  Maybe you are a glazer too?

 

But yesterday I didn’t.  I didn’t glaze when I saw 1 Corinthians 13 posted online – the familiar chapter that often surfaces at weddings and a good 7-10 days around Valentine’s Day.  We bring it back out, dust it off a little and yet most of us just glaze.

Maybe we could slow down a minute and not glaze.  Bear with me in my old school New King James Version text.  It’s my favorite.

Love suffers long

and is kind;

love does not envy;

love does not parade itself,

is not puffed up;

does not behave rudely,

does not seek its own,

is not provoked,

thinks no evil:

does not rejoice in iniquity,

but rejoices in the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.

You know what I realized when I read that yesterday?  I don’t think I’ve loved well one day in my life.  Not one.

I don’t suffer so well and sometimes I’m not even kind.  I don’t always rejoice in truth, sometimes I just get mad at it.  I don’t bear all things or believe all things or hope all things.  I believe some, but not all.  I buckle and grow weary and whiny and impatient and, man, I’m not all that much better that these little children I’m trying to parent.

I’m not sure where you tip the scales on Valentine’s Day.  Maybe you see it as a day of ridiculously commercialized and marketed hype, producing canned cards, trite sayings and a bunch of flowers that will be dead in a week – all to the tune of $17.6 billion dollars.  I’m not even kidding, I read that this morning.  Second only to Christmas, they say.

Or maybe you love the annual traditions and anticipation.  Maybe you’re glowing as you produce cute notes for your kids’ lunches and smile as the flower trucks run rampant through your town.

I’m naturally more of a smiler.  But this year, I’m looking at it more as a day to be thankful. Thankful for grace because boy do I ever mess this love thing up.

Thankful for kids who are growing and thriving in spite of my selfish mama moments, in spite of short tempers and a lack of patience. My not so perfect love.

Thankful for a man who married a 21 year old girl, having no clue how hard this love thing was going to be.  Having no clue of my levels of pride and self seeking, the long suffering he would have to wade through to make this marriage work.  I’m thankful for a man who is committed long and willing to fight for what we vowed to.  A man who endured so many days, so many years with a young bride, the baby of her family even, who knew so little of sacrifice.  I’ve yet to master it and yet he is patient.

1 Corinthians paints a pretty amazing picture of love and my own failure at it becomes glaring – even toward the people I like the most.  But even more, this passage makes me overwhelmingly thankful to God.  I know my mess, He knows my mess and yet He does this love thing so well.  Perfectly.  I’m an errant child, a wayward soul, flooded by love and grace that I have never once, never once, deserved.

Do you see it?  It’s just the tip of the iceberg really.  Parents who love me well and support me wildly. Friends who believe in me and encourage me.  Extended family, mentors, neighbors, co-workers.  People from various directions who bring beauty and encouragement into our messy lives.

This Valentine’s Day may we take a hard look at love, may we lay aside expectation and be endlessly thankful, overflowing with gratitude, toward the One who originated authentic love and the brave souls beside us who, even in our mess, choose to love us well.  We have much to be thankful for.  I am pretty certain this is how to truly appreciate Valentine’s Day this year.