I've never really liked Valentine's Day. To be truthful, my dislike of the day probably began sometime in my youth when I listened to a lot of Mariah Carey and was hoping for Cupid to strike a particular boy with his arrow so that my adoration would no longer be unrequited.
Or something like that.
In the intervening years, I've been blessed to have a valentine or two. And I'm pleased to be taken out for a Valentine's date and to be the recipient of Sees chocolate and flowers. But I still don't like the holiday. It's a lot of pressure, right? How often do those fantastical Jared The Galleria of Jewelry commercials and dream dates from The Bachelor come along in real life? I find them to be rather annoying and mildly nauseating.
Maybe it's because the holiday has strayed so far from what love really is. While I still haven't gotten a spur-of-the-moment-date-night-surprise-that-ended-with-dinner-atop-the-Eiffel-Tower, I've been fortunate enough to have witnessed what love really is.
Love is...
...a man who goes out to buy his wife the fettucine alfredo from the actual Italian restaurant she wanted it from, after he'd accidentally bought her noodle glop in white sauce from the poser Italian fast-food place, while his wife watches the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
...a little girl who wants to "snoggle wif mommy and daddy" and rub their earlobes all night after she's made them seven batches of wooden cookies and four pretend bowls of oyster soup.
...inside jokes and back scratches.
...a man giving his mother flowers on Valentine's Day.
...talking for long periods on the telephone to a girlfriend/fianceé/wife a couple of thousand miles away, when you actually loathe telephone-talking.
...a wife who gives her husband a kidney so that they can enjoy a few more years of love together.
...staying up until 1 a.m. to put together a little girl's new play kitchen which came in a 70 lb. box and has 1,472 pieces.
...holding hands in church with a napping toddler sprawled on laps.
...a daddy who takes a week of his vacation to accompany his daughter to Girl Scout Day Camp.
...hand-made Valentines cards covered in multiple crayon colors and stacked with no less than 23 foam stickers, which include letters of the alphabet, reindeer, hearts, flowers, and scrap pieces.
...laying across the edge of a hospital bed just to be as near as possible to a beloved family member who is gravely ill.
...making fish smothered in garlic and soy sauce for someone you love when you don't even like fish yourself.
...butterfly kisses and Eskimo kisses.
...love notes in lunchboxes.
...fistfuls of dandelions and clover presented triumphantly to a mommy.
...allowing cold feet on warm legs in bed.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails....
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
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