Why Valentine’s Day should be a big deal
Valentine’s Day is more than red paper hearts, Cupid, and foil-covered chocolate kisses. It’s the chance to turn the secular holiday it has become into a distinctly Christian one.
Here’s something to think about. As secularization has swept away the Christian’s traditional holy day—Sunday—Christians can take back a day consumed by commercialism. How? Put God into the Hallmark card holiday.
I get that you can be jaded by February 14th. If you’re lonely, single, heartbroken or down on the whole love thing for good reasons, you think it’s just a day. (Actually, it’s a day to survive or ignore.)
Or if your plate is full and you’re a maxed-out parent, care provider, teacher, coach, volunteer (or more than likely all of the aforementioned), V-Day is a manufactured ploy to get you to say or do something you already do each day, and that is express love.
But what if it can be more than that—for everyone? What would happen if Valentine’s Day became more than a day for new sweethearts and long-established couples? What if Valentine’s Day became bigger than buying your kids candy, or sending off a card to your mom?
You know someone who is having a pretty hard time right now. Rather than seeing this mid-February debacle through a cynical, narrow lens, what if you actually stop in front of a Valentine display and think a little bigger? Go a little wider?
Yeah. Now you get it. Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be so singular. It doesn’t have to be so secular. 1 John 4:16 says, “God is love.”
This is the most accurate way to describe God. This is also the simplest—the purist—way to define the undefinable.
So, where there is love, there is God.
Let there be God. Let there be love. Choose God. Choose love. Specifically, choose to express love beyond what you may have been thinking.
I get that people buck at the fact that “love” feels forced on the fourteenth. This billion-dollar business day IS contrived.
But it can be more than that.
I suggest you go further with Valentine’s Day than most people think. Why? Because someone out there needs those overpriced flowers, and you may be the only one to give them. Or the surprise of you coming through so unexpectedly on the day with some goofy gift will do exactly what you know it will do—it will change a downtrodden or sad person’s day, week, or remainder of the month.
Do it. Love like God on Valentine’s Day. It’s not “go big or go home.” It’s go big and then go home at the end of the day, knowing you’ve made this difference: you’ve let love be known.
_______
This post first appeared in the Susquehanna Independent column “Keeping the Pace” on February 7, 2018.
Leave a Reply