Valentimes: a belated post.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

film by Clara Williams Photography

It seems like there's nobody with passive feelings about Valentine's Day. You either love it or you hate it.

I love it. I'm all in. And I have been for all of my born days (ok, MOST of my born days).

It has baffled me for a long time why (mostly single) people have such strong negative feelings against it, and it wasn't until I was having a conversation with one of my friends about it on Valentine's Day that I had a bit of an "ah-ha" moment.

Most single people (or, so it seems) who don't like it, seem to feel that way because they don't have somebody lavishing attention or affection on them. Most single people who enjoy it (and those are few and far between), seem to love the chance to show real or silly affection to the people in their lives.

And THAT makes all the difference.

When your focus is on yourself and how much you are not getting what you think you deserve from somebody else, you are going to be miserable.

When your focus is on other people and how much you can bless and serve and show them love, chances are you are going to be much happier!

I love that quote by C.S. Lewis above. A lot of people apply it to romantic love, but love is so much more than that. "To love at all..."

....your family, your neighbors, your co-workers, your classmates, your church family, strangers in the grocery store, etc...

As Mumford and Sons said, "Where you invest your love, you invest your life."