Stuffies and giftware, cards and chocolates seem to be everywhere during the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day. I remember as a young adult, pondering the meaning of love. The definition I came up with is that love is a decision, a choice, that I need to make every single day. I know this is a very rational definition, not very romantic, and it has nothing to do with getting a gift on Valentine’s Day. I believe, though, that it can be really easy to fall out of love, to forget to show Christ-like love to our spouses in the day-to-day hustle of life.
Proverbs 3:3 says, “Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.” Steadfast can be defined as firm or unwavering. Celebrating and protecting love for others in our lives, whether with our spouses, family, or friends, needs to be something we hold close to our hearts. Loving as Christ loved should be something for which we strive daily.
While it can be nice to get a special gift on Valentine’s Day, it is even more important to regularly show the love we have for others, in little ways as well as large. Christ’s love for us was sacrificial. How can we show sacrificial love to one another? We need to remember that love is found in the details of our lives, not in the aisles of the nearest shopping supercenter.
A couple of weeks ago, as we got ready to go to church, my husband brought my dress shoes to me. He had just washed them. They were shiny and clean. What a gesture of love! He could have just as easily handed them to me dirty, as he focused on preparing to preach that morning, but he didn’t. He washed them. That is steadfast love. That is choosing to show love even through the dirt and grime of a muddy winter.
Love is all about the little things. It’s the waiting in the rain to pick our children up from school, the patience we show even when we are frustrated, doing the dishes for someone who is tired, going for a walk in the twilight, and even washing someone’s shoes. Sometimes the simplest thing done in love is the most profound. Love is so many different things, but mostly it is the manifestation of God in our lives.
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