Valentine's Day, 2021

Negative 17 my phone ap reads. The furnace runs repeatedly, its fan moans occasionally, and I wonder when it will admit it's had enough and say, forget it, I'm done. After almost a year of physically distancing, masking, etc., Valentine's Day looks like it will playout like most other days in February. 

I turn on Dr. Charles Stanley's ministry, 6:30 service, with a breakfast of raisin bran and toast on a tray on my lap, my heaviest robe enveloping me. The sermon title: "Love Lessons." Within a minute, I push pause, set my breakfast aside and locate pen and notebook. The word love always gets my attention. 💖 While a bowl of cereal grows soggy, I listen and take notes:

Love is more than an emotion; it is a commitment to another person. Love can discern true love in others (like radar). If you go through life unloved, you will have missed what life is all about. When a person truly feels love, it enables him to have three other important emotions: feelings of completeness, competent-ness, worthiness. Love is always thinking about the other person. If you're talking to someone, and they often use me, myself, I--be weary. Love gives, love is forgiving, love desires to express itself, love is patient. When you learn to love, God will change the direction of your life and you will discover life at its best. 

Want this? According to Dr. Stanley, read the Bible, talk to God. Dying on the cross was the greatest act of love. EVER. And, we who already have this, have a divine obligation to touch every generation of the love of God. DIVINE, isn't it?

Later, we bundle up and pick up carry-out lunch from a local restaurant. Steak, skewered shrimp, chicken parmesan, mashed potatoes and eat from an environmentally unfriendly Styrofoam box while we consider its impact on the planet's ecological system.

My husband's brother calls during our meal (the "gas man") from Missouri where temps are equally miserable and road ice an issue. He'd been working since 6 a.m. --delivering propane to keep houses and families warm.

After lunch, it's a good book, Mrs. Einstein; and on television, Monk, with husband David. It doesn't take chocolates, roses, candle-light--although they're all very special. Where's the love? It's in the appreciation of a cup of hot cocoa during church on u-tube, having a place to pick up excellent food just down the street, calls from family, a warm house with a complaintive furnace, worthy discussions, laughter... Someone to share it all with, ... whether this person is in the house or a phone call away or "on the radar" ....and in your heart. And, remembering, that spending time with God is at the top of the list. 

Happy Valentine's Day. 💖

Choose love. Choose divine love.