This Valetines Day

Love is...
sharing one heart

This was our first Valentines Day apart. I consider myself to be an emotionally strong woman, but I have to admit, I cried. There was no heaving or gasping for breath, but quite tears as I wallowed in my loneliness. I cried every time I looked in the mirror and every time I looked at a picture of the two of us. I missed the love of my life. I missed the man who makes my heart flutter with happiness.

For Valentine's Day, a group of teachers, those with either loved ones abroad or those without decided to go out on a group date to drown our sorrows away in good food and company. Throughout the evening I was deep in thought about Kyle. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about him. I take that back, there probably isn't an hour that goes by that I don't wish he were here with me. But life isn't always easy. Relationships aren't always easy. Like life, they have their mountains and their valleys. The valleys, although painful, make the mountains, their views and fresh air that much more amazing.

I read a quote recently, "The cavity which suffering carves into our souls will one day also be the receptacle of joy." Neil A. Maxwell (The quote is kind of working against my current metaphor, but go with it)

Kyle and I chose a life that may not have been the easiest road to have taken, but through our journey over the mountains and through the valleys it is important to remember our love, and where it began. And although we feel sometimes as if we hit impenetrable walls our love will endure and life will go on.

Many people argue that Valentine's Day is a stupid day; a day taken over by corporate America and turned into a commercial day. To some degree, I agree. I agree that the pressures on Valentine's Day are often unrealistic. Some couples feel that every year the gift that they give must be more expensive and more impressive than the year before. But that is not what Valentine's Day has to be about nor should be about. It started out as a day to remember love and loved ones, not to prove it by the worth of an object. Valentine's Day is what we make it, not what commercial society tells us it should be. I personally love Valentine's day. Sometimes we need a little reminder of the importance of not only our romantic love but of love in our other relationships such as friendship and family. Just as we celebrate our birth once a year on our birthdays, rejoicing in the fact that we were blessed enough to join this beautiful earth, we should use Valentine's Day as a day to rejoice in the blessing of love. But not through gifts necessarily. Gifts don't define love. Our actions define love.

I like to be reminded of my blessings and even though Kyle is far far away, I am still blessed to have had his love for eight wonderful years. And not only am I blessed with his love, I am blessed to have such a loving family and loving friends.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 is a bible verse that is shared at nearly every Christian wedding and even weddings of other religions because of the simple fact that this may be one of the greatest descriptions of love and it's importance in our lives that ever was. Read it slowly, carefully and if you can out loud. You may find it holds more meanings the more you read it.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
¹If I speak in the tongues^a]">[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^b]">[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Love is..

contagious.