Ready for a perfect Valentine’s Day? Best of luck. The Hollywood version has red roses, expensive dinners, and requires two perfect specimens of humanity.
I mean this: how many ordinary people qualify as a perfect specimen? I might scrape in, but probably only in the “Funny Veg” display! Of course, my wife is perfect in absolutely every way (she might read this, so I’m covering my bases) and together we get along pretty well…
Romance- real or manufactured? That’s a good question when we see the displays of chocolates, Prosecco, and expensive gifts of all kinds. Is Valentine’s Day the best time to entice or bedazzle a possible life partner?
Before you call me a grinch-left-over-from-Christmas, let me defend my good intentions! I’m after an even BETTER love.
Valentine’s Day can be a brilliant way of exploring or affirming love and commitment and I shall do my part. But it can put huge pressure on vulnerable or innocent hearts: I remember being a “love-lorn youf” and being awfully confused about “lurve.” And there will many disappointed youths in school- as well as the happy giddy ones. It’s not just the young ones though.
Dealing with loneliness, bereavement and loss can be very hard when everyone is supposed to be full of the joys of spring. Have a care with such people…
Actually, the best romance is sometimes “just” a comfortable relationship when the pressure of expectations is taken away. It may not be a PERFECT day but it can be a good one. That’ll do.
Even better: there is a perfect love available to EVERYONE. It’s the accepting Love of Father, Son, and Spirit. God, who IS relationship- Trinity- reaches out with love to share. It’s wholesome, multi-faceted, grace-filled Love that fills real lives with real Life. THIS love lasts all year- and beyond.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
1 John 4:7-9
The Reflectionary 