Celebrate LOVE

"What the World needs now, is LOVE sweet LOVE,
It's the only thing that there's just too little of..."
lyrics by Hal David, music by Burt Bacharach.

I have always loved Valentine's Day.

Making home-made Valentine cards was an activity we enjoyed immensely. Red, pink and white construction paper hearts, bits of lace, buttons, paper doilies were carefully stuck onto folded paper with gobs of white paste. We could hardly wait to get to our two-room school to hand them out to our friends. However, there seemed to be an unspoken contest of who would get the most cards indicating who was the most popular/ most loved. Looking back on this day, I'm sure some of the children didn't get many, perhaps none. They must have felt very unloved on that day of love. I wish I could have a do-over and make sure everybody in the room got one.

My husband was a school teacher so his classroom was abuzz doing the usual valentines activities. I was a stay-at-home mom expecting our second child. He forgot to get me something, not even a card and he knew he was in big trouble when he saw the special dinner and candles. He apologized and apologized, but I cried so uncontrollably that the poor guy didn't know what to do. I have grown up since then, but he has never forgotten it since..in fact he is more passionate about celebrating now than I am. Ha.ha.

But there can be so much more to this day than just the romantic kind of love. It represents the one thing that every human being craves for....more love.

Followers of Jesus should pounce on this holiday spreading love around liberally, not just the gushy stuff but the love that God has put in our hearts.
Jesus said, "By this will all people know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."John 13:35
It bothers me greatly that an event like Halloween is growing so rapidly in popularity. Why not the day of showing an extra amount of love to everyone? Random acts of kindness should abound.

I think Valentines Day should be declared a National Holiday, so I am turning on my red christmas lights and sticking red hearts on my garage door. Just call me a crazy romantic.