Matchless Love

First I must say a big CONGRATULATIONS to my Aunt Faith and Uncle Michael, who are pregnant with their 3rd child. YAY! I love children. I love family. What a great thing to look forward to this Christmas!

Secondly, Happy Love Day (aka, Valentines Day)! Though a well-known holiday thanks to major marketing schemes and card companies, it nevertheless is a day to reflect and savor the love we have in life. Again, thanks to Hallmark and the likes, Valentines Day is usually signified by romantic love, and due to this many feel an increased sense of loneliness on this day. To those of us who are single (myself included), how about we relish the love that we do have in life? - such as friends, family, and ultimately, the matchless Love of God, who is actually the very definition of Love. Sometimes, I ponder what the world would look like if we all knew just how God loves us, without any restrictions, boundaries, walls, limits, fear, or facades, and then how it would look like if we could give that love right back to Him and the people in our world. Then God reminds me to wait a bit longer: Heaven is approaching more each day.

I am reminded today that I will not settle. When it comes my time for the romance, I want to make sure I have waited for the right man, and nothing less. Just because something good comes along doesn't mean it's the best for me. Through the years (I know, I sound like a geezer using that phrase) I have learned through experience, taking the advice of those who go before me, observing others, and following God that the hard decisions are the most rewarding, and boy, do I have so much more to learn! God, give me wisdom through it all. This song is one that I have always kept the lyrics to in the back of my mind. They give me a hope that I am on the right track and always encourage me that I am going to have an amazing man:

Love, where is your fire?
I've been sitting here, smoking away
Making signals with sticks and odd ends and bits
Still there's no sign of a flame

Imposters have been passing,
Offering a good-feeling glow
But I'm holding out for what you are about,
An inferno that burns to the bone

Some urge me to be temperate,
But luke warm will never do.

'Cuz I wanna blaze with you
So I'm holding my heart out to you
I'm holding my heart out...

- taken from Love, Where is Your Fire? by Brooke Fraser

I know life isn't a chick flick, where the girl waits by her window for the man of her dreams and the man goes on this long journey to get there, and when they meet, they live happily ever after. No. That's not how it works. And sometimes I think, "Shame on Disney for forming that ideology in my head as a child." Still, there is something pure about that kind of love and passion. There is a reason little girls are so ready to accept it. There is a reason why young teenage girls these days are buying into the lies boys are whispering into their ears. There is a reason for the naïveté. It is not sheer stupidity. It is a longing to be deeply and truly loved. The reason so many girls (and even guys) go in circles, in relationship after relationship after relationship, is because they are looking for this matchless love that only God can give. Sounds so cliché, but the reason it's been uttered so many times is probably because, well, it's the only timeless, undying truth. True love, God's love, will never die. It is the only consistent thing on this earth. Better than love from your family, friends, or lover, God's love is matchless.

My prayer is that you enjoy this Day of Love, or Valentine's Day - whatever you choose to call it - with the people you love, with the realization that God's love is even greater.