Valentine's Day

I’m sorry I’ve been slacking on my blogging.  After being prodded by two of my closest friends to post more though, I’ve decided I’m going to try to be a little more faithful in my blog postings.  :) And this is going to be a long blog, so you better go to the bathroom now or get something to drink before you become too involved.

Yesterday, as you probably know, was Valentine’s Day.  And for the longest time, yesterday was probably the one day a year where I wanted to vomit more than any other day.  All the bears, and the heart-shaped candy boxes, the roses (Ugh, the roses!!!!), and all things Valentiney were an eyesore to me.  I believed it to be a holiday that was fabricated by card companies, chocolate manufacturers, diamond dealers, and florists to make a quick buck off of poor schmucks that date girls with overly dramatic ideas of love and what it means to be in love, and what it means to be loved.  Which was something I had no part in, nor did I want to be.

You see, my experiences with “love” had not been all that great in my life.  Now I’m not talking about the general idea- my family loved me very much growing up as they still do, but there was a part of my heart that went untouched for a very long time.  Most of my dating relationships were not very good ones.  That’s really an understatement, they weren’t good at all.  Growing up in a home where you receive so much love, you tend to love other people the same way, wholeheartedly and without reservation.  And while I loved in the only way I’ve ever known how, I have been dumped for girls who were prettier/smarter/cuter/easier/etc. than me. I’ve been taken advantage of in just about every way imaginable. I’ve been verbally and emotionally abused.  I’ve been neglected.  I’ve even been hit once, and had another person raise a hand to me like they were going to.  All of these things have been done by men, well- boys rather, who have said they loved me. I don’t want your pity, this happens to girls all over the place everyday in this world, but I want to give you a little background on why this holiday of “celebrating love” is not one of my favorites.  The more these things happened, the more I guarded my wounded heart and put up walls, trying to revive the broken pieces in my own ways, which weren’t way I should have been trying to fix them.

However, this year was different.

I was being pursued.  I was allowing myself to be pursued, rather.  After guarding my heart for so long, I had finally allowed myself to become vulnerable to the passionate and loving God of the universe.  I had allowed myself to see the beauty He sees in me as His child, and found beauty and love through Him.  I was no longer running away from the One who has been pursuing me my whole life, and I felt love the more I gave into letting Him love me.  Now that’s not to say that I’m a total sap now, but the holiday actually seemed tolerable to me this year, because in my efforts to love God as much as possible and to seek Him daily, God blessed me with something I never expected.

God placed a significant blessing in my life by the name of Andy Peavyhouse.  Andy has been a good friend to me for the last several months, within the last few, has become one of my best friends, and as of a few weeks ago- my boyfriend.  Well, Andy decided that he was going to change my mind about Valentine’s Day, and over the last few weeks, Andy has shown me a side of love I’ve never really known- romance.  Understand that this is not the Americanized, ridiculously lovey-dovey hokum that this world often associates it with, but rather the act of romancing- paying meticulous detail to everything in order to learn everything about me that makes me happy, sad, ticked off, or excited so that he can know me and love me to the best of his ability. 

Which leads me up to yesterday.  While sitting at dinner with Andy before we went to see Wicked at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, I looked at him and asked, “Why are you so good to me?  You didn’t have to do any of this.  Why me?”  To which he replied, “You seem to be implying you aren’t worth all of this, which you are.  And even though you think I do so much for you, it’s still not enough to show you how much I truly care about you.  What’s even more amazing though is that God loves you so much more than I could ever think about loving you.”  And at that point, I realized that my perspective of Valentine’s Day had changed.  No longer did I see it as an over-commercialized claptrap of a holiday preying the hearts of hopeless romantics, but rather I began to see it as a day to celebrate how deep God truly loves us, and how we should celebrate that love by not only loving Him, but also celebrate it by loving those around us.  That’s why we are here, to love others as Christ loved! So, my prayer for you is that you remember that we are given the ability to love because God first loved us, and we should always strive to love others in the same way. I pray that you would be romanced by God and that you would strive to seek Him above all things! 

Good night and God bless!!

1 Corinthians 13:13