Today never held much significance for me as a single (other than the yummy chocolates from Mom and Dad!), but it is becoming dearer. Today was my first Valentine's waking up in my husband's arms, and I'll tell you, it starts to take on a new significance. I start to get more mushy about the concept. I also start to get more defensive about it, too.
You see, our good old US of A has a way of slanting things, and it hasn't left this holiday alone any more than it's kept its fingers out of Christmas.
It's taken an economic concept and applied it to love.
I'm not going to start going on about how it's all for the greeting cards companies and so on and so forth. That's on the right track, but it doesn't go far enough and so ends up at a conclusive facade.
American love is consumeristic.
We use the word "love" in a manner that more honest people have the dignity to admit is only "want."
Sadly, this version of love does not stop at consuming bouquets and teddy bears and chocolates and cards: it consumes people.
Think about it.
"I love rice."
What I really mean is that I just had rice for lunch and was reminded how much I want to eat rice.
I love inexpensive household goods. Never mind the sweatshop laborers.
I love getting to plan my life. Never mind my children (born or otherwise).
I (conversely) love my children. Never mind my friends, marriages, or monetary limitations.
I love you. . . .
Eep.
Creepy.
Do we really mean love? Or are we thinking more along the lines of the t-shirt for sale in the mall, which reads, "Looking for a meaningful overnight relationship"?
Because we all know what that means. They're looking for a "
We use another person's body and think we're doing them a favor because we're not asking them to share their soul. We avoid the messiness of getting personal and think we can get away with it.
News flash: the body and the soul (consciousness) are so intertwined that no theologian or psychologist can tell you where one ends and the other begins. Why? Because God didn't make you half body and half soul - He made you all body and all soul! He never meant for the two to be separate! (Death wasn't part of the original design. But that's a topic for another time.)
And we scoff at the ones who hold out for more than a one-night stand.
Or we don the other t-shirt, the one that blurts, "Cool story, babe. Now go make me a sandwich." Because love is about what you get, right?
Don't tell me that the attitude of the second t-shirt must be love just because it sticks around. While the first consumes, so does the second. One is more like a hit and run. The second is just a slower, more drawn out version, sort of like bleeding to death on the sidewalk. Girls (or guys), if you are treated like a commodity, don't think it's because he loves you. He isn't showing you love; he's showing you bondage.
He can say, "I love you," but does he mean it?
How can you tell? Look at what he does with/to you.
1 Corinthians 13 puts love on a level with faith and hope.
Faith: shown by deeds. Considered illegitimate without the proof of action. Worth nothing unless it makes a substantive difference.
Hope: a powerful force that has no chemical explanation. Kept people alive in concentration camps. Its lack can itself cause disease or even death.
What is love? It definitely can't be summed up by a hormonal rush or a physiological arousal response. It isn't a direction or a place (so you can't fall into or out of it).
When I was learning to love, I was concerned because I didn't know exactly what love was, so I didn't know how to tell if I was actually in love. Silly girl! I was thinking that it was a state rather than an action, a reflexive response rather than a choice.
Mental clarity descended in that loftiest of places - the grocery store aisle - in that loftiest of positions - a grocery store clerk.
As I straightened the candy in Aisle 1, I contemplated the day's joys that I couldn't wait to share over the phone that night. I thought about the disappointments that I always rushed to him before any other human comfort. And I realized that we had love.
We weren't starting with a flimsy platform of feel-good sentiment. We were building something from the ground up while deep in the mire of the every day tumult.
We were creating a relationship that could survive real life because it wasn't based on a fairy tale of feelings.
We were choosing to share ourselves and care for the other. Why? Not because we could get something out of it, but because we wanted to give to the other person.
Love gives; it doesn't take.
That's the difference.
It's a heart issue.
And it makes all the difference.
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