Reflecting God’s Love as We Celebrate Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day holds many expectations. Roses, chocolates, sweet messages of love, dinner out.... We’ve created this vision of an ideal celebration. But hope doesn’t always match reality. Maybe there are no flowers, candy, card or romantic meal. Instead, February 14 comes and goes like any other day, the celebration either ignored or avoided.

But we should seize this day to celebrate. Why? Because God created us to love, to express that love to others and to receive love. He set the greatest example of love, giving up his only son for us. Wow. As a parent, I can’t imagine doing that. In Romans 5:8, we read that  ...God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God loves us that much.

Scripture overflows with references to God’s great, enduring and abounding love. I John 4, for example, details the depth of God’s love and his commandment to love others. Love others. Valentine’s Day gives us that opportunity to show love to family, friends, neighbors and more.

Several years ago, I planned a Valentine’s Day gift for two young families in my faith family who are especially dear to me. I crafted a heart attack. I cut 70 hearts of varied sizes from vibrant colored paper, attached them to stakes and then planted them in their front yards with the message, “You’ve been heart-attacked.” My husband and I carried out the covert operation under cover of dark. As we posted the hearts on snow-covered lawns, a family dog started barking and we figured we were busted. But no porch lights flashed on and we slipped away unseen, those many hearts proclaiming our love.

Come morning, two emails in my in-box shared the families’ delight in being heart-attacked. They then passed along that joy by pulling out the hearts and heart-attacking two others. My act of love for these families rippled. There’s joy in sharing love, both for the giver and the recipient.

Showing love needn’t be that involved. A compassionate phone call made, a greeting card sent, a door held, even an ear and heart to listen—all these gestures communicate love. If you bake, make a batch of cookies or brownies for a friend. My most treasured gift from my 24-year-old son, who lives in Boston, arrived last September in chocolate chunk cookies he and his then-girlfriend baked. I cried at the sweetness of this gift. Usually the mom sends the cookies. But I experienced love in reverse. Consider how a plate of heart-shaped cookies gifted on Valentine’s Day says, “I love you.”

KTIS, a Minnesota-based Christian radio station I listen to daily, advocates love for others through a first-Friday-of-the-month Drive-thru Difference. It’s a simple concept. Pay for the person behind you at the fast food drive-through. What an easy way to share Christian love on any day, including Valentine’s Day. The station often airs stories of those who have given and those who have received. They are heart-warming examples of selfless giving, of shining Christ’s love into the world by uplifting others.

This Valentine’s Day, consider the possibilities. Let your words and actions flow from a Christ-filled heart. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. (1 John 4:7).

Audrey Kletscher Helbling remembers one especially simple valentine she received from a classmate in her Minnesota elementary school. Dallas printed “I love you like a little dove” on a plain white cut-out paper heart. Audrey still has that valentine among the glittery punch-out cards from her other classmates. But it is the one she remembers most. Simple, thoughtful and poetically sweet.