Valentine’s Day.  A day that fills women with expectation, men with dread, Hallmark with profit.

The day always seemed so ill-conceived to me.  More about artificiality than love.

Then a random comment my mother made helped me to look at V-Day with a new purpose.

And, she wasn’t even talking about V-Day.

She said that in her day, people only “loved” God and other people.  Everything else they merely “liked.”

They didn’t love music, or love sports, or love jewelry or love blogging.

The word “love” wasn’t tossed about like a feather in the wind.

The word “love” was guarded, held close to the heart, only awarded to the utmost of affection. You could say that people were stingier with the word.

I’d like to return to that practice…at least, for Valentine’s Day.

Love is a blessing, a gift.

To heap it onto a favorite television show or comfortable garment just seems wrong.

To assign our most precious feeling to a new car or to our favorite death-by-chocolate dessert seems inappropriate, despite how incredible those two are.

If you have a child, then you know love. “Real” love, that is.  Remember those tears you shed when that child was born, or when you rushed her to the emergency room, or when you helped him pack for college?

I can’t imagine crying those same gut-wrenching tears over an athletic team or a paint color.

Yet, just as we “love” our child, we “love” the Steelers and we “love” that deep ochre shade on our dining room walls.

When we tell our children or our significant others that we love them, then move on within the same half-hour to say we love that new cheese we got at Trader Joe’s, do they understand the degrees of difference in that word “love”?

And what about God, our maker, our sovereign? Do we really “love” that rug we found at Pier One the way that we love Him?

I don’t know about your dictionary, but mine does not distinguish between types of love or degrees of love.  It just defines love as “an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment.”

Yep, that could apply to a person, place or thing.

I doubt that we can convince everyone on planet earth to stop using the word so willy-nilly, and I don’t think we could all agree on a newly coined “love”-type of word that would be reserved just for people.

But for today, this Valentine’s Day that is appropriately wrapped around loving people (at least I hope you are not giving V-Day cards to your favorite shoes), celebrate it!

Enjoy it for the day it is – a day all about loving the people in your life.

And while you’re at it, leaf through your Bible (the fattest Valentine’s card I’ve ever seen), then send up a little prayer expressing your love and thanks and wishing Him a grand Valentine’s Day.  I think He’d get a kick out of it.

So, the challenge is:  Add some poignancy and celebration to Valentine’s Day by vowing to use the word “love” today ONLY in association with people and God.

Happy Valentine’s Day!