Psst… I’m mostly speaking to the guys with this one (but you ladies can listen in too).
So I’m hoping you figured out before now that today is Valentine’s Day, right? Allow me to let you in on a little secret: this day may be a no-big-deal day for you, but it is a HUGE deal for the ladies in your life! So the most loving thing you can do is make today a big deal to you too!
Maybe you’ve already figured that part out, and you are trying to make today a special day. But let me ask you a question: Does this Valentine’s Day look just like last year’s? I sure hope not, because our love should be growing up.
Smack-dab in the middle of his great treatise on love, the apostle Paul says this about grown-up love:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Quite simply this means: your love is supposed to be maturing. You’re supposed to be getting better at expressing your love … more creative in your date night planning … more intuitive in your gift giving …
So how are you doing? Is your love growing up?
February 15, 2011 at 6:22 pm
I underwent an interesting transition in providing my girlfriend with a special Valentine’s Day. Truthfully, it starting with a sense of urgency and obligation as the Big Day approached. Then the planning and execution, including searching the internet for ideas. (I know, that’s “so lame.”) Finally, the footwork and driving of getting together the ingredients for a special dinner (I don’t cook, so EVERYTHING, including cooking utensils, had to be bought), and flowers for my own creative idea of a flower arrangement (which included “hot peppers”of various colors), and finally the ingredients for a “bake from scratch” chocolate cake (needless to say, I don’t bake either.) In a word, I was “exhausted” at this point in the endeavor, and wondered what in the world was I doing in the Grocery Store at 11:00 p.m. trying to find items I usually never buy.
But . . . there was that moment, when the kitchen was clean and organized, the ingredients all laid out, the internet printed menu before me, and I could see it all coming together–suddenly I was excited–I was full of anticipation at pleasing and surprising the one I love. And, I was doing it in her “love language”–service and giving, especially cooking. [Our own love language is usually the one we use to express love to others, and she is always cooking for me].
I was delighted when I witnessed her surprise, her elation, and her appreciation. She became warm and cuddly. It was wonderful!
I don’t know how mature this love was on my part. At times it felt quite childish as I secretly whimpered and complained about how much time and energy it took. But oh, the end result! It was worth every minute to see the joy I gave to my beloved.
On reflection, I see how this experience is a model of much loving in the world. Loving is seldom a uniformly “happy” experience devoid of effort and some irritations. What then keeps us going? What motivates us to persist? It is that we care more for the joy of our beloved than we care for our momentary pains and sacrifices. Maybe that is what makes love “mature.”
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February 15, 2011 at 8:05 pm
I love this, Frank! Way to speak her language!
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