Paper Hearts

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Everywhere you go....

But, it’s February, you say. 

Yes. And today is Valentine’s Eve. Men congregate at various roadside stands, supermarkets or chain stores searching for the least-wilted bouquet of flowers. The good chocolates—the ones with the map on the inside—are probably gone by now. And the cards—let’s talk about the cards!

According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year! Second only to Christmas. Ladies, you purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines (www.history.com, 2009)

Paper hearts. Pretty colors, be-ribboned, bedazzled with glitter, declaring that you are special and beloved. You are the one. You are favored. You are loved. 

How can something so flimsy and disposable hold such power over us? Let’s think back to this day of love in elementary school. Were you the girl (or boy) whose paper bag was stuffed to the brim with valentines cards? Or maybe your paper bag was like a potato chip bag—mostly stuffed with air. Almost empty. 

Certainly, we gain a better understanding of love as we grow older—right? I’ll be honest. I didn’t. I believed what was written on every love card I was dealt and I was always left feeling hurt or disappointed. Empty. 

The beauty of emptiness is that there is then, finally, room for truth to seep in. To fill up. I traded my empty heart for a new one. And the new one is not paper-thin. It is soft and large. It is sensitive to the Holy Spirit—to the way in which God loves me and would have me love others. Just as He promised.

I'm going to give you a new heart, and I'm going to give you a new spirit within all of your deepest parts. I’ll remove that rock-hard heart of yours and replace it with one that’s sensitive to me (Ezekiel 36:26, ISV).

If on this Valentine’s Day you find yourself without a human hand to hold, a special person with whom to exchange paper hearts, know this—the greatest love is waiting for you. God loves each of us, not because we are lovable, but because He is love (Lewis, C.S.). Written within God’s valentine to us—His Word—we find that love is not found in a box of chocolates, a bouquet of roses, or a fancy meal. It looks nothing like the commercials:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT).