It is getting near Valentines day, probably one of my (if not the) favorite holidays in the entire year...yeah I know guys are not supposed to be so mushy...whatever.
Being a divorced single Valentines Day always carried a little bit of pain with it, since our primary emphasis is on romantic love, but several years ago I adjusted the way i thought about it.
My primary paradigm about the holiday now is that it is about love...and even a little bit of culturally warped love is better than no love at all...
Where would we be without love?
Truly none of us could function even a little bit.
Fish need water to swim, birds need sky to fly, and people need love to live.
We were made to love and to be loved.
So if you take out all the love then you take out all the life.
I've had fish tanks where due to neglect the water got cloudy, tropical fish are extremely beautiful but the balance of the eco-system is very fragile and it doesn't take much for the water to fall below optimum opacity and chemical balance...but just because the water was cloudy I never once thought about getting rid of all water and expecting the fish to survive.
Sometimes our relational life gets a little cloudy, especially in a world where people are paired up like animals heading to the ark, many times being single feels like you are gonna get stuck outside the ark when the flood comes and there is a quiet desperation that wants to dominate your emotions...
...still...I would rather see and observe a romantic holiday that celebrates the intent of loves design than live in a world devoid of all love because I am now single.
Even observing love is better than living in a love void.
What is better than love for us?
And just because you may not be in a "romantic" relationship does not mean that you are not living in a love aquarium where the Father is closely watching your emotional eco-system...He knows exactly what you need and it always starts in His love, so really...we always have love.
So I rejoice in any celebration of love, I am a hopeless romantic and will remain such until I breathe my last...I still listen to Frank Sinatra and Harry Connick Jr. and Nat King Cole and any others who "love" love...
The Bible declares that the greatest force of action that we can move in is love...and love will remain...we are continually called to love and to grow in our love and to be lovers of God and to receive His love and well....there's a lot of love in the Bible.
It really is quite simple...we should never be afraid to love, we should never apologize for loving, we should never be embarrassed because we are romantics and enjoy the idea of love...we should never feel ashamed that we need love...
We all need love...
Let me say it again...
We...
All...
Need...
Love...
Every person you know needs to be loved...and you need to be loved...so whats the big deal in talking about it, celebrating it, focusing on it?
Really when you think about it, who benefits if we abandon love?...Only hell...there is no love in hell...
...and really that is the best definition of hell I can think of, its like forcing a fish to exist outside of water, hell is the only place in the universe where there is no love...think about it.
So really...
Even celebrating broken and mangled human love kinda guarantees we are at minimum providing something that keeps the atmosphere of hell at bay...see hell cannot exist in love anymore than love can exist in hell.
So I ask...where's the love?
Because once you find it...you've found a safe place, an "anti-hell zone" so to speak...
The good news is we get to practice being people who love, it is our heritage, it is the atmosphere we were meant to thrive in...so go ahead...celebrate romantic love...enjoy the environment that your very nature requires to exist...
You were meant for love...and love was meant for you...love is, after all Gods idea...He invented it...He is it...(God is Love)...and even romantic love shows us the way to God...
What a cool way to live and thrive and what an exciting journey we are on...we get to learn about love all the while being loved by a God who is in His very nature love...
Even the Beatles knew...all you need is love.
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