Celebrating love.

As most everyone knows or will now know,

February is my favorite.

I've loved celebrating love

since elementary school 

when Valentines day looked like sleepovers,

extra candy, and craft time.

I still have my top 5 Valentines Cards

stuffed in a box somewhere in my closet.

Adults roll their eyes, 

or profess their hatred for Valentines day

all the time.

But if you think about it,

it's a day to consciously celebrate loving others...

which is a commandment, and a theme with Jesus.

One thing God has been teaching me about love lately,

is that it should be done out of freedom.

I would have said I love others often.

I give up myself, my time, my priorities all the time.

To make someone happy.

To keep someone pleased.

To stay away from conflict.

But that's not really love.

Because in the end I feel used,

bitter, and all the more selfish.

Love should be done out of freedom,

not force.

For me that looks like setting boundaries,

looking inward to  check my motivations,

asking for God's love to fill my life,

not my own paled version.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body up to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." 

1 Corinthians 13:1-3