February is the month for lovers. Valentine's Day is the Fourteenth and everyone is supposed to get a card or gift on that particular day from the one they love. Sometimes, however, we must feel like Charlie Brown, waiting in front of his mailbox, to learn if he has received a card or letter from the Red Headed Girl with whom he is secretly in love - and he waits in vain.
I remember in fourth grade making Valentines and giving them to someone in class. The big problem was that I never received one from the one person in the class from whom I would have been delighted to have received one. We are often disappointed in love. There are folks around us who happily love us, but we are often seeking it from sources where it is not available. So, we are disappointed and sometimes depressed. Most of us have probably been despondent over a non-requited love.
To tell someone, “It’s all right at least God loves you,” doesn’t seem to help. God feels very remote, and God’s arms are not very reassuring. God is unavailable and the person is not interested at that time to be loved by some phantom lover.
To say to the person though, “I love you,” in a convincing and warm way may make all the difference. I am sure that many of us do not say those words often enough to our family members who need to hear them and to our friends who might be surprised to hear them, or to an acquaintance who would be bowled over to hear them. There are a number of reasons we do not do that, but a poignant one is that it would obligate us. We remember John saying, “Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” I believe that “showing and telling” are both important.
Jim
Posted by Mark McNabb at February 1, 2006 03:39 PM