Yes ladies, it’s Valentine’s Day! That one day each year when the special man in your life frantically searches out just the right card, visits a florist for roses, picks up a box of chocolates or maybe something very sparkly, all to show you just how much he loves you. And retailers, florists, and jewelers work exhausting hours in anticipation of great monetary rewards. Let’s not forget restaurants that gear up for enormous crowds and add enormous automatic gratuities to your check because it’s a special “holiday.” All of this in the name of “love”!

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those romantic gestures as much as anyone. But I also know that love is much more than gifts and a special dinner out. Love is getting up early to put the coffee pot on. Love is washing dishes when a spouse has had a hard day or maybe just because you feel like doing it. Love is caring for a sick spouse, meeting the large and small needs as well as all the nasty ones. Love is washing the car when he’s had a very long week. Love is sharing parenting duties. Love is a hug when it’s least expected, a hot cup of tea as the long day ends. Countless simple everyday gestures speak more love than all the extravagances we heap into this one day.

Something else happens today and it has impacted humanity more than any other event in our history. Today we begin the journey of Lent. Once again we are preparing ourselves, though not for the birth of a promised Messiah. This time we prepare to walk alongside that child who has become a man on his tortured pathway to a cruel cross. Over these next weeks, we’ll look at the words shared in Galatians, words that describe what and who we are to be as children of the Trinity. (You’ll note that I use God, Jesus, & Holy Spirit interchangeably because they are.)

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5: 22-23a

The attributes shared here describe the foundation of who Christ was as He walked this earth. Love, as we define it, is a romantic feeling for another person. Though it seems the most important element of our lives when we are engaged in a romantic relationship, our human feeling of love can never reach the depth of boundless love that God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, has for us, his precious children. It’s a love we can’t begin to understand because it is divine. It demonstrates itself in His ability to forgive when we hurt Him repeatedly. In His constant provision for us. In His constant presence through the Holy Spirit. Most importantly in His willingness to place His own Son on a cross. And that the Son was willing to bear the burden of pain and death for only one reason. He loves us and He knew, as did his Father, from the beginning of time, that we would need forgiveness.

God gave us all an enormous gift—the freedom of choice. This could be the most amazing

 feat He could have ever done. He made us and loved us beyond anything we could

 possibly imagine. Then He left it up to us to love Him back.

Erika Bentsen, Walking In Grace 2024

Because He gave us freedom of choice, the opportunity to stumble and fall became inevitable. We are only human. But He offers us recklessly, over-the-top, boundless love that can overcome anything we can manage to get ourselves into. You will recall there were two criminals, one on each side of Him as He hung on the cross. Even after all the crimes they had committed, they had the opportunity to turn away from what they had done and be reconciled with God. One chose heaven and it was granted to him. The other scoffed and turned his back on Jesus. We know where he is spending his eternity.

God’s love doesn’t know boundaries, doesn’t hold grudges against those who confess their sins, and doesn’  t abandon us in our fears and doubts. He just keeps on loving and he wants us to do the same. There are people around us who need to feel God’s reckless, over-the-top, boundless kind of love.

Enjoy all the treats this Valentine’s Day will bring and always be a loving child of God wherever you are needed.  

 Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God…(except ourselves) Romans 8:39b