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Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

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February 14, 2017

The Real Valentine (it’s not at CVS)

Woodside Cemetery

Like most Hallmark holidays, Valentine’s Day, a day that supposedly promotes love, has a high probability of doing the opposite. Ok maybe not promoting “hate” – how about just plain old anxiety/depression?

   I’ve noticed a trend in health care over the last few years. When I review a patient’s history, there is frequently a diagnosis of “Anxiety/Depression”. I see it so often I shorten it to “Anx/Dep”. If it’s a trend in health care, then it’s worth noting. The world, at least in these parts, is unhappy.

   Happiness is an unalienable right, or at least the pursuit of it. But it can be elusive, the Golden Carrot that we are all running the race for, right? Happiness may be tied to a promotion, our children, a trip to the Caribbean. But it’s here, then gone, like stardust. Like Valentine’s Day.

   I am old enough to remember Valentine’s Day before the PC Squad took it over. You could actually go to school and get zero Valentine’s Day cards while your classmates were showered with love and Snoopy Valentines. I’m not saying that ever happened to me. I think I got one or two anyway.

   This time of year is dark for me. The shadow of my son’s birthday looms just ahead, February 19th, a silent day that I still don’t know what to do with, so I walk around in a fog, disoriented and moody. Years ago, the pain was crushing and I would gasp for breath. Nowadays it’s a familiar ache that reaches way down into the Mom place. I think it’s behind my heart. I could cry, but I’d rather do something Spence would like – tell someone about Jesus, love someone that needs it.

   St. Valentine, so the story goes, had it kind of rough. Claudius, the emperor of Rome, felt that unmarried men would fight better, die better, if they weren’t tethered to sweethearts and those pesky kids so he decreed a ban on marriage. Valentine intervened, converting soldiers to Christianity before secretly marrying them. No box of chocolates – he was beaten, stoned then beheaded, on February 14th ,273 AD. And we pout if we get 6 roses instead of 12.

   I’ve been trying to prepare a Bible study on Love for a group of female prisoners. I imagine “Anx/Dep” is pandemic in prisons. Love is a confusing concept, and so many have been abused, used and rejected under its banner. The problem is we can’t survive without it. God made us to love as much as we need breath.

   I’m no expert on this topic. I am 60 and I still have to really focus on loving people the way Jesus wants me to. It’s just not natural – I want to step back and gently shut the door on them, turn and make some tea and be left alone with a good book. Spence had this uncanny sense of drawing towards those who were the most rejected. It was like Jesus was holding his hand and pointing the way to go, often obscure places no one else saw. It was not easy for him, a kid who was unbearably shy around people he really wished he could trust. When he was alone, he prayed for those he couldn’t get to personally. He didn’t get to see those prayers answered and he often mistook God’s silence for displeasure. Did I tell you he was stubborn too? That no matter how many times a mother tried to tell him he was loved, he argued. He got that from me. Maybe the stubborn part too. When I get to see him someday, I’d like to say, I told you so, but I doubt it will even come up.

   When I look for Love, I look at Jesus. His love wasn’t some philosophical formula, or a flowery “Why can’t we all get along?” sermon. His love was sharp as a sword, His love made men put down their stones, His love was nailed to a cross. It was gritty, it was truth. His love was a glorious empty tomb.

   Next to my son’s grave is a heart shaped stone, with a young woman buried beneath. On the stone is inscribed:

Do not stand by my grave and cry

I am not here, I did not die

I live with the risen Lord.

   I love that, in fact it’s why I buried my son next to her, so I could read that as I stood looking at my son’s grave, trying to absorb the truth, that he was gone. Yes, he died and is no longer here, but he lives with the risen Lord. And out of the dust and disappointment of our lives, our failures, the Lord lives. He breathes life into death. He unwraps His children from the grave clothes of “Anxiety/ Depression”. He is Love eternal, unfailing, unchanging.

   I’m going to make a Valentine’s Day pie for my Valentine, and tell my husband the same thing I tell him everyday – that I love him. He’s probably in the card aisle at CVS, like right now, grumbling that all the “good” cards are gone. Tomorrow, we will be a day older, and the country will be filled with half-eaten boxes of chocolates, mostly cream –filled. But no matter what you’re facing, Jesus has been there too. And He’s calling you to Him, “Come.” Come to a love that is unshakeable, unmovable.

   The Apostle Paul, who lived long before Valentine, knew this love beyond what we can imagine; in prison, through shipwreck and beatings and being left for dead. It was a love he eventually gave his very life for, because he knew that true love is more than just a feeling, a poem or even a treasure chest of jewels. He said this:

 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Now I know what I’ll say to the girls in jail tonight. That Love is here, with us right now. And nothing, not even prison bars, can keep Him from us. I know they will really love that. It may be the happiest Valentines Day ever!

 

 

I counted – there’s 12!

 

 

Filed Under: Hope, Love Tagged: CVS, prison, Valentine
4 Comments

February 13, 2014

Not For Sissies

IMG_1672

Me and my Valentine at Acadia. Still friends after climbing that thing behind us.

 

“That’s it. I quit.” I lifted myself back down through the crevice, wedging my left knee between the two huge boulders and dangling my right foot into midair, searching for a place to step down to.

“We’re almost there! You can do it Robin. I can help you!” my husband pleaded from above.

Love is patient.

I was beyond help. I was tired, in pain and worst of all, I was sweaty and hot. Now I know the guy knows me well enough to know this is the end of my last thread.

“I’m happy waiting right here!” I snapped back at him, then began to mutter that I NEVER should’ve done this in the first place, I’ll NEVER do it again and what’s the point in climbing anyway? I was happy just driving to the top of a mountain. I was even happy climbing halfway up this stupid mountain. The view was just as breathtaking 400 feet below me and I sure didn’t need another twenty feet of pain and terror to get a better view of the mountains and the ocean beyond. I was vexed. I found a little ledge in the shade and peeled off my socks and shoes.

Shortly thereafter I heard grunting and snorting above me and watched a young man with a backpack who looked like he was late for a calculus class work his way through the same crevice that I had backed down through, only with less grace I hope.

“The backpack throws off my balance,” he explained, a little startled by me sitting there. I nodded and waved as he descended down the trail, wishing I could go with him, but I told C.B. I’d wait.

This was our second anniversary trip to Acadia National Park. Last year we hiked up a different mountain. That trail edged along the side of the mountain, so it was like you were walking along the windowsill of a skyscraper the whole way up. I complained and moaned from the bottom to the very top, everything from not being able to breathe to threatening to puke. C.B. just smiled at me and waved me along like I was some kind of Outward Bound drop-out.

I said I would hike again, but a kinder mountain, please. I’m thinking there is no such thing.

The day before we had gone biking and after three hours I told him I was going to cry if I saw another hill. He smiled and led me back to the bike shop.

“You did great, honey.!” Yeah, save it pal. My thighs feel like they have been drawn and quartered. And I’m sweaty. Yuk.

 Love is kind.

C.B. and I met when I was 40. We had both been humbled by divorce. He had been single for nine years; me for three. When I say single I mean alone. We both dabbled a bit with dating, but when a Christian dates it is this awkward circling dance that must end in either marriage behind curtain number one, or rejection behind curtain number two. If it’s not going somewhere then it derails quickly. So singleness can become a way of life. And when you know Jesus, it is not as lonely. I can’t say you are never lonely because God didn’t create us to be alone, hence Eve. But we were kind of used to alone. Anyway, sparks flew. I said Yes. And we both stepped back into the unpredictable waters of marriage.

Love does not envy, or boast.

I think that marriage is not for sissies. If you want the kind of marriage that God talks about, becoming one, submitting, dying, never leaving or forsaking…it takes guts and courage. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do. I’m so good at winning an argument. But I’m so bad at really listening, accepting and laying the whole debate down. Surrender. Ouch.

It does not demand its own way…

We’ve been married 16 years, which is short time for most people our age. But after the death of a child, moving three times, pastoring for five years, job losses, a cancer diagnosis and repeated solicitations from AARP, we can say that a lot of water has rushed under our bridge and nearly taken the bridge down. There are things I have said that I can’t take back, let downs, disappointments; we could both score high on the sparring field of marital combat. It’s tempting sometimes, to pull out the card and wave it. But God took my card and tore it up. He threw it “as far as the east is from the west”, which I realized as I flew to Korea that it’s so far, it ceases to exist. Precisely.

It is not irritable and it keeps no record of wrong.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. C.B knows I don’t like chocolates and I only like spontaneous flowers. I’ve saved the best of the best cards over the years and he is a beautiful writer, although my son Miles wins best Valentine’s poem when he was in high school:

Roses are red

Violets are blue,

My pulmonary arteries

Pump for you!

That was both a nod to my nursing profession and good use of his anatomy and physiology class.

But besides being grateful for a husband who really does love me, even when I quit on mountains and cry on bike rides, I am mostly grateful for a husband who is steadfast in his love for Jesus, because there at the cross we remember His love for us, a love that gave all, forgave all and the grace that keeps us daily ever pressing closer to what love really means. I confess I still have a ways to go, but I’m liking the journey more and more.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

We are already planning a return to Acadia next fall. We will climb again because C.B. loves to climb mountains and after 16 years I can truly say I love to follow him. Only I get to pick the mountain. Something friendlier, kinder… maybe I can rent a donkey.

Love never fails.

(all verses from God’s valentine to us:1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

Filed Under: Love Tagged: love, marriage, Valentine
3 Comments

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