True Valentine

Up until a couple years ago Valentines Day was for me a dreaded occurrence, as yet another year passed me by without a card or sonnet, a bunch of roses or box of chocolates I would begin to feel this swell in my throat and a sting behind my eyes of self pity. Last year was the first time I remember not noticing the dreaded day at all, maybe I had other things on my mind and simply forgot or maybe it was something else. Today it happened again, a friend mentioned the big holiday weekend and I thought "holiday weekend... do people actually celebrate presidents day?"

As I looked around at work and noticed all of the pink hearts and cute little teddy bears with phrases like kiss me or be mine and so on and remembered that today is Valentines Day, the formidable holiday emphasized by greeting card companies and western society in order to make single people feel like crap. Though oddly and to my surprise, I didn't. What had happened? Had I grown so very cynical in affairs of the heart that I had simply erased the day from my memory? Looking at my book collection of great romances like Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Little Dorrit I know that isn't the case. I'm still a sucker for a good romance, and every time I stand in a church to see my friend who is now a bride I can't help but pull out those hidden tissues and hope my mascara doesn't smear.

Giving it much thought I realized the answer to my lack of that familiar longing, I'm satisfied.

Wondering at those words I thought some more, and realized not just that I'm satisfied, but that any man I met now would be... a disappointment. I know many men who are very good men, some of the best men any one could ever want to know, so this is not a men bashing session. I love my brothers, but I can't seem to find my way past this one point. They are not Christ.

The more I know Christ, the less I desire anyone but Him. All men pale in comparison to Him. No man could ever satisfy me as deeply and richly as Christ does. Love is not merely physical, or emotional. Love based on those two points is a poorly made forgery, a cheap copy of the original, like the play money bought at the dollar stores, no reasonable person would accept as being of any true lasting value. Emotions change rapidly, and so do hormones. Christ's love goes deeper, He probes the inner reaches of my heart and mind, He reveals to me my hidden self. Things buried so deep that I fail to recognize them. He is more than a good man, He is the only good. "No one is good but God alone" There has never been a romance written by men that comes within a stones throw of the romance God has written for His people. He loved us so much that in order to bridge the gap between us, He became like US. Just think, the Holy God of Heaven, who could not come close enough to us because of our sin put on Human flesh, Human weakness, learned to walk as we do, learned to talk as we do, felt pain as we do, just to be near us. "How great is the love that the Father has lavished on us, that WE should be called Children of God. And that is what we are."

Like with all great romances, the end usually depends on the intendeds response to the whisper of "I love you." I am thankful now maybe more than ever before, that Christ brought me to that point to reply to His invitation "I love you too"

What is your response? In order for Gods love to be lavished upon you, you must respond to His call and accept it for what it is. Know that God pursued those He made in His image, who hid themselves from Him as far as putting on, taking our weakness onto Himself, and when that wasn't entirely enough He also took our suffering, all great lovers would die for their bride, and Christ did. But no lover has been able to do what Christ has done, loving with such all encompassing passion that He fought off the power of death and defeated it. Raising from the dead to seal the fates of millions of His beloved, that we will never be separated from Him again, "nothing can separate us from the love of Christ"

It's no wonder that I'm satisfied, no one besides Him could love me that deeply.

Or you for that matter.