Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day makes me sick. Or at least I used to think so.

When I was in elementary school, every year our school would have a Valentine's Day party. The kids would go buy their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or My Little Pony valentines, write one for everybody in the class (and their teacher), and drop them in little paper bags on everyone's desk. And every year, my mom would go up to the school, pick up my valentine bag, and bring it home to me, because I was sick in bed. In five years of elementary school, this happened four times, plus again in junior high and high school.

The reason I thought it made me sick wasn't because I came down with something every February. Until this year, I thought the whole thing was just another exercise in conspicuous consumption. I thought everyone was struggling to keep up with the popular culture's pressure to spend money on dinner, flowers, jewelry, etc., or stay home and stew over not having a reason to. I would tell everyone who would listen about how Valentine's Day is an ancient Roman custom that has been hijacked by restaurant owners, card companies, and anyone else who wants to make a dollar at our expense.

But this kind of thinking misses the real point. Yes, the popular culture version of it is all red and pink, alcohol and fancy dinners, and diamond bracelets. But instead of focusing on how that conception is wrong, we need to look at what we should do instead.

If we are married, engaged, dating, etc., it should be a time to examine our relationship with the other person-whether we are showing them every day, not just one day, how important they are to us, and how we value them as a friend and a companion. Christians, we should all take the time to look at whether that relationship is glorifying God, and if we are putting Him at the center. He is the Author of every love story.

I'm single, but I'm not going to let Valentine's Day go by without taking a look at myself, and the kind of man God is creating to be a companion to my future wife. If it is His will that I be married one day, am I growing in the Lord, in holiness, so that I can provide what she needs from her husband? I don't bring this up to sound presumptuous, or get ahead of where I should be at this stage of my life, but I believe that just thinking about where I want to be later on will make me a better follower of God now, and a better husband and father when, and if, the time comes.

As individuals, whether Christian or not, we can always examine ourselves to see where our lives are headed, and if what we are doing now points us to that goal. And whether single, married, or otherwise, we can use Valentine's Day as a way to have fun and share a special day with others, but also to look at ourselves. And that's nothing to get sick over.