Valentine’s day – do you love it or hate it?

It seems to me that this day, meant to celebrate love, often is a source of disappointment and discontent. 

Some of us haven’t reconciled the difference between romance and love.

Some of us set a high bar for romantic gestures and when our expectations aren’t fulfilled, give in to disappointment and anger.

Some of us pin our hopes that on this day our man, though long silent and distant, might reach out for us again.

Some of us, who normally leverage our singleness to serve the Lord with joy, feel incomplete and lonely on this day.

Sometimes we long so desperately for romance that we lose sight of the great romance we are already living. 

We have been wooed and won by the King of heaven. So great is His love for us that He sacrificed His very life to rescue us and draw us to Himself. The life we now live, we live as a bride betrothed to her beloved. Even now He is preparing a great wedding feast and a home where we can live forever with Him. Our earthly loves are but a dim and limited reflection of the purity and power of God’s love for us.

This Valentine’s Day, if all the mushy Facebook posts and Hallmark ads are tempting us to feel sorry for ourselves, let’s shift our focus from our loneliness or disappointment by fixing our eyes on Jesus, the One who has come, and is coming, for us.