All You Need Is Love

By Lisa Robertson

February is famous for groundhogs, presidents and best of all LOVE!

Interesting stuff--Valentine’s Day is in exactly two weeks, so there is still plenty of time to send your cards.  Did you know that over 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year? Not a surprise that teachers receive the most.  Women purchase 85% of the cards and men purchase 73% of the flowers. 

Tradition tells us that Valentine’s Day started during the reign of Claudius II in 270 AD.  He believed that single men were better soldiers and he didn’t want them to marry.  However, Bishop Valentine performed secret ceremonies for the soldiers and their true loves.  He was jailed and then executed on February 14 for breaking the law.  The story continues that while in jail, he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter.  Shortly before his death, he sent her a love note and signed it “From your Valentine”.  From 270 AD to 2012 “From your Valentine,”lives on.

Bishop Valentine became one of the most popular saints in the Catholic Church.

In just 5 days, my son, Willis, will be married in Los Angeles. Caitlin is a beautiful young woman, inside and out.  These past few days have been incredibly busy getting ready for the wedding.  This morning, my kitchen table is covered with lists for the rehearsal dinner, the bus schedules, beauty appointments, menu selections, invitations, bills and more. 

Now that the day is almost here, I need to take a step back  from the lists and remember the importance of marriage.  Right now, the wedding is demanding everyone’s time, money and emotion and I have temporarily lost my perspective that the marriage is more important than the wedding. The wedding is a day and the marriage is a lifetime.

How incredible that two imperfect people choose to join their lives and hearts to live together, and live “happily ever after” for the rest of their lives! Think of the math--one imperfect woman plus one imperfect man = a perfect marriage!  With this mathematic formula, I am convinced that marriage is a miracle!   Their vows include promises to love, cherish, honor and obey.  Apart for God, this is impossible!  My sweet husband reminds me that when a man gets married he sees “Perfection” and when a woman gets married, she sees “Potential”.  He is a very wise and wonderful man.

Marriage is a miracle and God is the God of miracles!  In the past 35 years of marriage, I have been driven to the Bible in searched of nuggets on love and how to stay happily married.  I don’t want to survive in my marriage, I want to thrive in marriage.

Here are some of my favorite Bible thoughts on love------

1.     God is love-I John 4:7-8- God is the source of all love.  He loves us more than anyone will ever love us. No human has the capacity to love us like God does. How curious that we crave love from humans and sometimes we reject God’s love for us?

2.     Perfect love casts out all fear-1 John 4:18-God’s love for us is perfect and I do not have to be afraid of tomorrow, others or failure, if I stay anchored in God’s love.

3.     Love covers all sins-Proverbs 10:12 and repeated in 1 Peter 4:8- How powerful and freeing this truth is!  In my mind, I see this as a picture -- God’s love covers and smothers the sin that burns in my life.  If His love smothers my sin, then the challenge is for me to love and forgive others.

4.     Love never fails- 1 Corinthians 13:8-this is my favorite guidepost. I hate to fail!  To me, Fail is the worst 4 letter word.  This promise fortifies me with the truth that God’s love will never fail me and it won’t fail others.  I don’t always understand this, but I know that it is always true.  In difficult relationships, I often pray,  “God, please, show me how to love them.” Try this and you might be surprised.  God is so creative and wise.   You can be certain that God will give you some very interesting answers. 

 Stay tuned to more on love this Thursday!

  Xoxox, Lisa (you will learn about xox, too)