Valentine’s Day. Those two words conjure up all sorts of wonderful images. Heart-shaped boxes of chocolates; pretty jewellery and clothing; romantic dates; and heartfelt expressions of love and intimacy. Yes, on February 14 every year Love is in the Air!

Valentine’s Day seems to be a timeless tradition – and ageless. Even at eight years old, I heard some of the girls in my class boasting they had received four or even five cards from anonymous boys. 

Boys! To be honest I couldn’t help but wonder, in my eight year old mind, what all the fuss was about. I was still getting over the boys germs/girls germs games we had played a couple of years earlier. Having no brothers just added to the sense of mystery and awe.

The following year I waited with expectation on Valentine’s Day hoping for anonymous notes from secret admirers. But not one card, letter or message showed up with those elusive words, “From your Valentine”. Disappointed, I decided I didn’t need some unknown fan telling me how much he liked me. Truth be known, I thought it was a little cowardly. If you are going to express your love for someone, surely you would be man enough to be identified. Surely,  the man to express love to me would not allow heaven or earth to stop him from being seen, known and ‘present’ in my life.

So what’s it all about?
Valentine’s Day is a day to express romantic love and attraction for others. However, its beginnings are anything but sentimental. Historically it is a celebration of the death on February 14 of a religious martyr in Roman times around the year 270. There are several stories about this man (or men) called Valentine that have come down through the centuries. These include a man signing “From your Valentine” in a note to a girl the day before he died; and a priest who refused to not marry soldiers as Emperor Claudius II demanded.

Over the centuries this religious celebration of the martyr, St Valentine, has transformed into a celebration of romantic love, with millions of Valentine’s Day cards being given away in the US alone every year, and a myriad of other goods and services in a lucrative commercial enterprise. Some cynics might even say that love has turned into big business.

But we all know that’s not true. While Valentine’s Day may be a big money-spinner,  that quality of love itself is still the essence of life, which costs very little in a monetary sense, but can be very costly in the giving. Like flowers need sunshine to bloom, we all need love to blossom into the glorious person we were created to be.

It is obvious we were all all created for love – just listen to all the songs on the radio about it!
So just askin’ . . . Who might that Creator be? Who is the author of love which makes the world go around and infects the very air we breathe?
Well, it’s God of course, personified and identified as his Son Jesus Christ. The man who would not allow heaven or earth to stop him from expressing his love for me.

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Scrubcutter from Focus on the Family, spoken by Tim Sisarich, CEO of Focus on the Family NZ