love month

it's the love month.
whether you buy into it or not, you can't help but be bombarded with big puffy red hearts come february.
they're everywhere.
i'm sorta on the side that says valentine's is a bit of an over-commercialized holiday.
heck, it is a great excuse for one on one time with the person you love (hellooo, DATE night!?)
but i don't really buy into the advertising hype about showing love with a gift.
"buy a gift from the heart..."
"this valentine's day, buy her..."
"show your love this valentine's with a gift from..."
course, my love language is not gifts.
so what do i know?
ok, what i do know is that no one wants a forced gift.
i'm sure we've all been there... either on the gifting side, or the receiving side.
at the end of the day, those are pointless gifts.
it sounds so trite and clichéd but the only real gift we can give someone is love.
pure, unconditional love.
it's easy to throw around the word love nowadays.
it's overused and abused.
love is not an emotion or feeling.
love is a verb. (or LUV is a verb... can i get a 'what, what' my fellow dc talk fans!?)
in all seriousness... it really is a verb.
which means action.
doing stuff.
love isn't how you feel towards that person.
you simply love someone and, in turn, want to do something for that person.
not should or would or could... you really just want to!
it's natural.
like kiss on the forehead for your child,
a hug for a dear friend,
an offer for a ride,
or a trip to the grocery store for your neighbour.

but... sometimes people make us mad.
they hurt our feelings... make us sad... bitter... resentful.
it's easy to focus on our emotions.
especially as women... because, let's face it, we are emotional creatures.
it's how we were woven together.
but guess what?!
i have great news... for women and men.
for everyone.
we don't need to love people on our own merit.
but we can love people with the love of Jesus.
on our own, we cannot love people the way we're supposed to.
but His supernatural love can intercede for us.
and when we love with His love, we will naturally do stuff for others.
and here's an even bigger surprise... we won't even just love those that are easy to love.
with Christ's love in us, we can love those that are unlovable and difficult to love.
in fact, we will want to love on them.
and sometimes, that just might mean gift giving.
but not because we have to.
we do it because we want to.
so instead of focusing on what we should do for those that we love...
or focusing on how we've failed those we love...
just focus on loving Jesus.
with His love, we will be loving them for exactly who they are and how God made them.
we won't be looking anymore at their quirks, annoyances, faults and sins.
we will look past the bad choices and sinful actions.
because that's what God does for us.
each. and. every. day.
all. the. time.
God's love is always constant and full.
and His grace is never ending.
now let's go out and share that kind of love during the love month.
and... if that means you go out and buy a gift for someone... then you go and do that.
but only do it because you want to!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

 (i hope you enjoyed these old pics of my girls from valentine's day 2010)