Love expresses itself in many ways. Generally, we love our kids and our spouse and we share good times as well as trying times. We might play games, sports, watch movies, and sometimes work on projects together. In our case, we built a home together. With three kids under age seven, we began planning our own ‘Lil’ house on a prairie.’ When we bought our land and home in a kit, we worked together every summer on getting it one step closer to a livable place. Our ever-creative eldest-of-the-two daughters was always engineering ways to speed things up. As our log cabin was being put together on the inside, she and our son straddled the tie-beam log, spanning the living room almost ten feet above ground, and scrubbed it with water, cleansers, and a brush. Not wanting to have to get down often, she decided to tie a rope on the handle of a five-gallon bucket and lower it down to her younger sister who in turn would empty & fill it and pass it up again. The bucket was even used to hoist the younger sister up & down! Working together does create bonding, not to mention lasting memories of pulling together and the love that is achieved when a group of five becomes a group of one in purpose and function.
God expresses His love to us every single day multiple times over. We need to stop and look for it. It’s everywhere: from the air we breathe, to the fact that we can breathe, to faithful sunrises and sunsets, and critters singing to Him in praise. As St. Valentine’s Day is celebrated this year, make a connection to the love God has given you. His heart was in everything He created. The red heart resembles the blood He shed for us. Chocolates and candies represent the sweetness in serving Him. True, rising prices may affect our choice of goodies, but then again, He rose to the occasion of crucifixion, He paid the high price of salvation, He rose from the dead for us, His goodies. All He did for us oozed the sweet-smelling fragrance of love. Not just any love but unmerited love, undeserved love, unrivaled love, and unconditional love. Will you accept His box of chocolates for you? Will you accept His love? Will you ask Him to be your Valentine? Just as when He died, He’ll accept you with open, outstretched arms.
Like those yummy chocolates, His love oozes out for us every day, until one day when it may be too late for us to accept Him; yet His love will continue with or without us. Like our kids working together and being creative to accomplish a task, God is busy creating ways to get our attention to accomplish the task of reuniting us with Him and inviting us into His home.
His Name and His Being is Love.