Reflections on Marriage: V is for Valentines
I’ve always liked Valentine’s Day. I think it’s a fun time to let our family and friends know how much we love and appreciate them. When our children were still at home, we would decorate lunch sacks and put homemade valentines or “love notes” in each other’s sacks, which we would read on Valentine’s Day. Now that our children all live away from our home, my husband David and I will sometimes make each other homemade valentine cards—just for old time’s sake! This year, I sent valentine greetings to my family through WhatsApp and used FaceTime to tell David how much I love him, as I was out of town on February 14th. Modern technology is nice when needed. It’s not quite as personal, but as I always say, “It’s better to do something than nothing.”
Image source: Etsy
Valentine
Valentines,
love notes, gifts,
and flowers are
fun ways to
spice up your
marriage with some
variety and excitement
as you go
out of your
way to brighten
your sweetheart’s day.
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence:
and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
—1 Corinthians 7: 31
Excerpt from ABC’s for a Happy Marriage: A Collection of Original Poetry and Biblical Scriptures
And the Greatest of These Is Love
I enjoyed hearing this message by Gordon B. Hinckley entitled And the Greatest of These Is Love when he first gave it in 1984. In this article, he tells the story of a couple whom he knew when they were all younger and met again on an airplane after they had been married for a long time. He said of them, “Forty-five years earlier people without understanding had asked what they saw in each other. Their friends of those days saw only a farm boy from the country and a smiling girl with freckles on her nose. But these two found in each other love and loyalty, peace and faith in the future.”
President Hinckley’s words about love are still relevant today:
I wish to discuss something for which all of us long, which all of us need, and without which the world can be a lonely and desolate place. I speak of love.
When I was a little boy, we children traded paper hearts at school on Valentine’s Day. At night we dropped them at the doors of our friends, stamping on the porch and then running in the dark to hide.
Almost without exception those valentines had printed on their face, “I love you.” I have since come to know that love is more than a paper heart. Love is of the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is more than the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arches across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, church, and neighbor.
. . . This principle of love is the basic essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Without love of God and love of neighbor there is little else to commend the gospel to us as a way of life.
The Master taught: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” (Luke 9:24.) This remarkable and miraculous process occurs in our own lives as we reach out with love to serve others.
Each of us can, with effort, successfully root the principle of love deep in our being so that we may be nourished by its great power all our lives. For as we tap into the power of love, we will come to understand the great truth written by John: “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.” (1 John 4:16.)
Love is a gift from God. Keep loving. Keep caring. And keep sharing Valentines, love notes, gifts, and flowers!