Well how was your Valentine’s Day? Did you get a super-sized floral arrangement? How about a box of candy or maybe both? Did you spend time at a restaurant or get treated to a special home cooked meal? Did you even realize it was Valentine’s Day last Thursday?

One of my nieces is born on February 14th that day known as an icon for LOVE in the minds of many. Schools had parties or other types of celebrations. Numerous childcare centers I passed in my travels on Thursday had decorations outside to greet the children in red with balloons. A dear friend sent a text to me acknowledging her love yet again on that day – a welcomed surprise! Another made a special trip to See’s Candies to share a chocolate filled heart with me!

Were you personally reminded of the day by a gesture of love to you? Did you treat yourself to a loving act?

While each of us may have a list of things that we would like to have received on the day of LOVE, perhaps waiting for the floral delivery truck to drive up to your residence or to be summoned at work to retrieve your bountiful bouquet, what did you do for someone else? Did you make a phone call, exchange a smile or text? Did you share your expression of love to anyone else? Or did you get angry because you did not get the display that you wanted?

What does it feel like to you when you notice a lack in the area of love? What do you experience when you are in a place of loneliness? I am not speaking of being alone, without others in your company. Nor do I reference the lack of someone in close proximity to you. Because we can be in a stadium with thousands of others and be lonely, likewise we can be in a building void of the physical presence of another individual yet be wrapped in the warmth of companionship, like a fireplace at a chalet in the middle of a blizzard.

We were designed by God to be relational beings. Our bodies engineered for giving and receiving love. Like no other creatures we – those made in God’s image – are here to be in relationship with Him and others. Our Maker is love. (See 1 John 4:8, 16) He loved us so much that He gave (John 3:16-17). He gave. He designed us in His image to give and receive love. He made us so that we can be in relationship with Him and receive and give love to Him. He also gave us the ability to receive and give love to each other. He is a relational being. He desires to have a relationship with you.

I define love as giving of your gifts to meet someone at their point of need. When you love yourself you give attention to those things that will nurture you. When you love your neighbor you give of yourself, from your gifting in ways that nurture them. This is a delicate balance and I’ll explain a little more; that giving does not mean you behave as a people pleaser – excluding yourself, nor do I intend to imply that you should become self-indulgent, feeding all of your personal desires to excess. Neither of those behaviors is equivalent to nurturing. The world we live in is inflated with examples of self-indulgent entitlement and giving to others until it hurts. Not love. Not in the image of God.

God is LOVE.

Being made in His image means that one of our basic human needs is to love and be loved. As we think back on the day thought to be the symbol of love in our culture by many, how do you love LOVE?  How did you acknowledge our Maker on that day? Did you experience closeness with God on Valentine’s Day? Did you commune with God? Did you share yourself with God? What is a good way to love our Maker? He gave to you, to me, what are we willing to give to Him? How does He know we love Him on any day?

Those that you are not in regular communication with, how do they know that you love them? Those that are not in regular communication with you, how do you know they love you? What if you only heard from them once a year, would that be enough for you? Do you think that sometimes when you are on your own without that person that you love, you will feel some loneliness?

Love is an action word a verb. That means it is demonstrated through action. How is your love expressed to God? If you did not get the expression of love you desired on Valentine’s Day what did you do to express that love to others? What do you to express love to the God who first loved you?

With the flowers still in the vase, remnants of the sweetness of the chocolates still on our pallets and thoughts of longing for more still in mind, I ask you to ponder on the following passage in 1 John 4:20-21 the Message version: “If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.”

Who do you love? Indeed, who?

Love,

Deborah

“Lighting the path to loving your neighbor as yourself.”