It is more blessed to give than to recieve

“Love is not getting, but giving…. It is goodness and honor and peace and pure living—yes, love is that and it is the best thing in the world and the thing that lives the longest. -Henry Van Dyke.

Valentine’s Day, on the one hand, is a silly and over commercialized holiday that comes once a year. On the other hand, showing love is timeless. The media would have us think Valentine’s Day is just for lovers. But, it’s so much more than that. Valentine’s Day often gives us pause and causes us to look at our relationships and focus on the people in our lives. People like sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, friends, the lonely lady down the block, a friend we’ve lost touch with, and so forth. Valentine’s Day is for everyone.

So, while it may be an over commercialized holiday, we can be quite creative and have some fun with it and spread and share the love in our hearts far and wide. All the better if we’ve retained our child’s heart to pull out upon occasions. Valentine’s Day is one occasion that’s perfect for keeping our child’s heart close by and not tucking it away just because we think we are now “mature”, so to speak.
As a hopeless romantic, and most definitely a woman child, my child’s heart can easily be tapped into and is typically readily accessible. Valentine’s Day gives me a good excuse to give away dollops of love.
This Valentine’s Day I’ve found myself making sugar Valentine cookies and then decorating them with frosting, making Valentine’s Day cards for my gaggle of girlfriends, sending a Valentine’s Day card to a recently widowed woman with a marriage of 60 years, putting together little bags of my sugar cookies in different sizes and handing out to my friends at church with little Valentine shaped cut-out pieces of paper with their names in red, and inviting a special friend for a home made “healthy waffles” brunch.

Silly serendipitous stuff, isn’t it? But, the blessing from creative giving becomes more than one can imagine when you witness the delight in the recipient’s eyes.

The gift of love and care comes right back and fills your own heart to the brim.

Happy Valentine’s Day!