A Fresh Expression of Love

As you know, February is not only the month when loving, caring, compassionate, tender people are born, e.g., yours truly, it is also the month of love and romance, the month we celebrate Valentine’s Day.
As I have written in an earlier article, most (probably all) of the holidays we celebrate are merely a means to keep the economy running at full-speed ahead, and this one is certainly no exception. There is no telling just how much money will be spent on candy, cards, flowers, and jewelry by those who are attempting to express love to a lover (or, more probably, to stay out of the dog house).
What you might not know is this: my birthday, the day after Valentine’s Day, serves as the day when things return to the status quo. The candy will have been eaten, the cards will have been either discarded or carefully stored, the flowers will have already begun to wilt and fade, and the jewelry will have already begun to tarnish—a short-lived expression of love, at best.
Have you ever allowed your mind to wander just a bit outside the proverbial Valentine’s Day box, and to wonder what would happen if we decided to declare a moratorium on the giving of candy, mass-produced cards, flowers, and jewelry on Valentine’s Day, allowing only verbal or written-from-the-heart expressions of love? My guess is this: the stress and anxiety levels of most people would increase markedly (including of course the business owners who would miss the financial windfall) because it is one thing to buy a card that someone else has written, or a box of Whitman’s chocolates, or a dozen roses, or a piece of jewelry and give it to another as an expression of love, but it is quite another to come up with something on your own, especially something of lasting value (I feel confident that the candy-makers, card producers, florists, and jewelers need not worry about job security!).
Anyway, I love the Song of Songs and one of the reasons I so love it is that it is Jesus’ personal, verbal, God-breathed, expression of His love for you and for me. WOW! What an incredible love—no limits, no conditions, just pure unadulterated love—pure! Listen to these words: Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have already appeared in the land; the time has arrived for pruning the vines, and the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. The fig tree has ripened it figs, and the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along! O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret place of the steep pathway, let me see your form, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your form is lovely (2:10-14). Now, you tell me, would you be willing to exchange this for a freight-car load of boxes of candy, or the entire card-rack at Hallmarks, or eighteen dozen roses, or a 10 caret diamond?
Oh well—I just thought I would see if I could make you think outside the proverbial Valentine’s Day box, AND I thought I would remind you that with Him there is no status quo!