I realize today is a tough day for a lot of people…

It’s the lovers holiday,

Valentine’s Day,

Single’s Awareness Day,

Market-to-saps Day, or whatever you happen to deem it.

I’ve heard it called just about every name in the book in the past several hours. There are very few people really DO feel loved.  Maybe you’re one of them. For people that don’t have anyone, THIS IS the pain of life… a day devoted to dredging up and throwing in one’s face the fact that love doesn’t exist for them… that there’s no one out there who would defend them or die for them like that of a passionate Romeo-and-Juliet romance.  Does it make sense to you then that more than half of teenagers growing up in the U.S. go through a “gothic” stage where they embrace death and hate the world?  I realize on a regular basis how blessed I’ve been to be surrounded by so much love in my circle of friends and family that I’ve never felt the weight of that hatred.

You know… sap isn’t usually genuine, hype is just hype but there is something to Valentine’s Day.  I’ve come to realize that life really IS all about passion and encouragement.  If I’m being completely honest with you about what matters most to me, I’d say life isn’t worth living if I can’t communicate the love of Jesus Christ to the people that surround me everyday.  This isn’t some weird, freako’s fake attempt at piety either; hundreds of experiences put it in my face every day that life is all about who you love and serve.

Plato put it well when he said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” I’m blessed if I remember and live by this. Even in “Christian” circles, people struggle with unbelievable regret and feelings of emptiness and loneliness.  I think it’s easy to forget that, yeah, “crap happens” (as a friend’s bumper sticker said) and life can be really tough but we do have someone who was so completely and irrationally in-love with us that He died for us.  If that isn’t the fuel for a heart-wrenching, overpowering romance story, I don’t know what is. How much more should we show love because of the love we’ve been shown? It’s time to get over ourselves and our pity party this Valentine’s Day and fall in-love with LIFE.  Start serving and remember the love you’ve been shown instead of looking for meaningless paper affection that’s here today and thrown in the trash tomorrow.

Most people know about Jesus Christ… his story has become just that… another story.  But do we really understand how much it applies to our lives, how it becomes our lives?  In this case, the sappy, gooey, mushy feelings usually associated with love have no place (quite frankly, I think they never should).  The preferred color of every Valentine’s Day card, the color depictive of passion, blood, and romance is my favorite color – it’s all over this site. It reminds me of who I am and that the most precious, amazing man in the world gave his life for mine.