Last Saturday was Valentine's Day. It's not my favorite holiday. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against giving tokens of affection to one's significant other. As far as I'm concerned, the more opportunities we have to say I love you, the better. My objection to the annual February love-fest is that Valentine's Day love is so one-dimensional. If one took one's definition of love only from what we see on Valentine's Day one would think love was all romance and roses, blushing cheeks and hearts going pit-a-pat. Love is so much deeper than that. Real love bleeds.
Real love is a husband and wife working hard to stay in touch with each other and being sensitive to each other's needs long after the first flush of romance is past. Love is parents pouring their lives into their children and then, when the time comes, biting their tongues and giving those children the room to be independent adults. Yes, love is beautiful, but love is also painful. We make ourselves vulnerable when we love another person. Our love may not be returned or it may be used against us. It's the willingness to risk the pain that gives love its beauty. The difference between real love and imitation love is the difference between real roses and imitation roses: Real roses have thorns.
God knows what kind of thorns go along with real love. He created human beings to be the objects of his love and experiences the pain of rejection when we turn away from him in sin. Even then his love for us is so great that his Son went to the cross for us. Jesus Christ died so that we might know the love of God. Our heavenly Father wrote his valentine to the world in the blood of his only begotten Son. Today, Ash Wednesday, we enter into Lent, a season given to the contemplation of the daunting love letter from God. By the Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving may we be drawn closer to the heart of God which bleeds in love for us.
