Love is in the air! It’s February, Cupid has shot his arrow, and you can’t get away from it! Chocolate hearts you can eat, gold and silver hearts you can wear, hearts on T-shirts you can put on, even hearts in the foam of our beloved cappuccinos! There’s no escaping it, The Love Bug is contagious!

So it may seem obvious to you or redundant, that I would post a series on LOVE in February, but it is quite the contrary! I find love anything but typical. Yes it’s true that the world has set aside a day to share love. Scratch that, an entire month with the wonderful stretching of commercialism. However, the world did not create love. In fact, too much of the time the world doesn’t even know the author of love. Although the world certainly has the market on enticement! So quickly, without even thinking much about it we get caught up in all of the hearts and flowers. Before we know it we have allowed the world to define the concept of love for us.

This misinterpretation of Love can really do a number on us. It can cause us to distrust or dislike the concept all together. This is what happened to me at the age of seventeen. It wasn’t a young love in high school that broke my heart, or an infatuation of a valentine I never received. For me, it was the loss of my Hero.

My Dad was bigger than life to me! He could do no wrong! He loved me, played with me, defended me, and truly made me feel that if I was daddy’s little girl, then nothing could hurt me. I was loved and I was cherished! Then it happened……He chose to love someone else over me, over my sisters, and over my mom. It didn’t just leave me with a broken heart, it destroyed me.

I couldn’t make sense of it. My mind and my heart were no longer synced together. It seemed as though they were two separate entities, swirling in loss, grief, pain, and misunderstanding. My concept of love had been shattered. I remember sitting alone on the floor of my closet, picking up one shoe at a time and throwing it at the closet wall. I screamed out loud that I would never love anyone again. I would never give my heart to anybody. I would never give anyone the opportunity to hurt me like that again!

Then it happened…I learned the true meaning of love. It came to me in a gentle but firm voice. It overwhelmed my spirit, and it filled my broken heart to the brim.

God spoke to me and said, ” You can choose to never love again. You can close your heart off and never let anyone hurt you. But, if you do that then I can’t use you to share my love with others. I love you with the love that will never leave you or forsake you. I am your Heavenly Father.”

It wasn’t like magic. My world didn’t turn into flowers and hearts. My life didn’t become an easy path to walk. However, my heart opened up and God was able to teach me what the Truth about Love Is.

God also brought complete healing and restoration with my Dad! He taught me the true definition of love and forgiveness through that process…but that is blog post for another time!

So what’s love got to do with it? As the song lyrics say, “What’s Love but a second hand emotion. What’s Love got to do with it, got to do with it? WHO NEEDS A HEART WHEN A HEART CAN BE BROKEN?”

Love has everything to do with it! Love is an action, it is the act of giving something away. Giving your heart to another, and opening it up to be broken. Taking the chance to share God’s Love with someone else.

Yes it’s true, your love can be rejected. Boy does that rejection sting! But your love can also be accepted! It can bring joy to a lonely person, and healing to a broken heart. It can put a smile on a sour face, and bring everlasting life to a lost being. Love, true Love, God’s Love, is the greatest gift the world has ever, or will ever know! It is meant to be given away.

God loves you and God loves me! He proved His love for us when He gave the greatest gift we could ever receive, His Son Jesus. God’s love never fails! I trusted him that day when I was only seventeen years old. He picked me up off that closet floor, set my feet firmly on the ground, loved me like I had never been loved before, and He has never failed me! He never will. God is love!

I’m not saying that I don’t like Valentine’s Day, for in fact, I actually LOVE Valentine’s Day! Valentine’s Day gives this silly, emotional, passionate, over joyous woman, an “approved” day to share God’s great love with those I love!

What I am trying to clearly say is that love is not a feeling, love is an action

So, let’s choose to Love because you have been loved. Giveaway what God has so freely given to us!

TRUTH BOMB:

True love is not a feeling, True Love is an action.

“For God so loved the world that He GAVE His one and only Son. That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

Love is something we do because of what God did for us! God, the author and perfecter of love, gave His son as a sacrifice for us, so we can in turn, love others!

Whether you consider yourself a Valentine’s Day lover, a Valentine’s Day hater, or you are just neutral, TRUE LOVE is yours, and TRUE LOVE is mine. It’s time to turn that love into action!

Speak Truth Love