Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.

Today is a funny day that people have really different and really strong feelings about. There are those that have been planning for weeks, maybe months, for today – for a special gift or a special date.  There are those who plan to propose tonight. There are those who are wearing black today to make the world aware that they hate love. There are those who are grieving today because they lost their spouse this year and today, among most other days, is a reminder of the love that they lost.  There are those who have resigned to sit on their couch and eat ungodly amounts of food and watch reruns of the Bachelor.  And then there are people like me who just don’t care about Valentine’s Day.  (And to really rock the boat, I actually don’t care about Santa Claus either.)  I love love, but I don’t care about February 14 and all the hoopla.

Regardless of how you feel about Valentine’s Day, it’s nearly impossible to get through February 14 without thinking about love.

And here is what I want to say…

Love – the red and pink, chocolate and flowers, hallmark kinda love – will not save you.  Love from another human being will never save you.  God has given us relationships in which we are able to feel and give love and get a taste – just a taste – for how much God loves us, but these relationships and these feelings are incomplete and leave us feeling like we’re still lacking.

I can say with certainty that even though I am crazy about my husband, and I know he feels the same about me, it wasn’t until we were married that we realized we would never fully satisfy each other.  Ugh.  That’s a hard lesson to learn in marriage.  I am thankful that we learned it pretty quickly.  We failed each other miserably and learned very quickly that we were pretty pitiful saviors for each other.  But, what it did teach us, especially me, is that I had put love and marriage on a pedestal.  I had dreamed for so long what it would be like to be in love and to be married and I had positioned myself to be saved by Doug.  I thought that when I got married that I would no longer have my heart broken.  And it turns out, that is a lie. We are heartbreakers, even on this side of marriage.  Because I was never meant to save Doug, and he was never meant to save me. And our lack of saving capabilities makes us even more desperate for a good savior – a complete savior.

So, today, on Valentine’s Day, I plan to enjoy my husband.  I plan to eat PeiWei and have a glass of wine and catch up on some Downton Abbey with him.  But, I also plan to remember how I have a God that loves me without fail, whose love for will never be thwarted, a God whose love was victorious over death and who is near to me and my ever-present help.

I hope that today, no matter how you feel about a day that has been Hallmark-hijacked, that you take a moment to stop looking at the world around you for love and ask God to fill you with a more satisfying love.

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3.21-23