Love is not for sissies

I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day. It's not just the commercialism that I resist. I think I am a bit of a cynic when it comes to love. There, I said it out loud. I am therefore most often complaining about what love is not. That's the great joy of being a cynic - it's very seldom one gets to participate in any positive emotions.

It does help me to know that the origins of Valentine's Day were not romantic love, or cupids with bows and arrows, but a doctor, named Valentine who went about doing good deeds, helping Christians persecuted by the Roman Empire. For his love, he was beheaded on February 14, and hence we have the day.

Even the cynic in me can find something to like in that story.
And in discovering the origins of what this day is all about, I can throw away the red fluff, and the glittery cards, and spend some time thinking about what I can do to show my nearest and dearest and even total strangers what I think love may be.

Care to join me? Here are some more words to inspire you.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back, 

But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies.

That's from The Message - 1 Corinthinans 13.

One more, before you put your device away and go and show the love.

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.” 

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves.

Be brave. Love someone today.