They call the day Saint Valentines Day, and it is celebrated annually on February 14Th. It is a day where love and affection is expressed between companions, husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends, parents and their children, and between friends. We send and receive cards, flowers, and candy.
I love to receive all these expressions of love but I prefer for my significant other to do it when he feels like it, and not wait until a day that society has designated. So, I asked myself how did this all start? What was the origin of Valentine’s Day? I must tell you, I really did not like what I found out.
Some say Valentine’s Day started as a pagan holiday. Pagans are sometimes defined as people who are polytheistic, or believing in more than one god. So as I did my research, already the holiday already did not sit right with me. This holiday was connected to fertility and amorous love. Several types of gods were worshipped in connection to this day; the Greeks had Pan, the Semites had Baul or Nimrod who is actually mentioned in the Genesis 10:9, the Romans had Baal, Saturn or Lupercus.
During the early Christian church days, the religious hierarchy tried to get rid of the holiday, but the people refused to give it up. So the church succumbed and tried to turn it into a religious holiday where-in the Virgin Mary was honored. The Catholic Church also tried to change it, and make it a day where Christian martyrs were honored, so they practiced their rites on Feb 14Th in an effort to make the people give up the holiday.
Another popular story is one of a Roman Priest named Valentine. Valentine was imprisoned and executed for performing marriages and refusing to give up Christianity. Roman Emperor Claudius II who was cruel and engaged in several bloody losing battles. He forbade young couples from marrying because he thought that then the new husband did not want to leave his wife. Personally, I think people were tired of dying in his losing battles. Anyway, folklore tells us that the Priest would secretly wed the young couples. Claudius’ soldiers caught him, and threw him in prison. While in prison Valentine befriended the jailers daughter and before he died on FEB. 14Th 296 AD, he wrote her a note and signed it “love from your Valentine”. Hence, Valentine's Day.
While I was doing this research on St. Valentines Day, the Lord pressed this on my heart. “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL AND ALL YOUR MIND.” As a Christian, I know “we shall have no other gods before Him (Exodus 20:3)and this practice began with worshiping gods. can you imagine? They want to give me Cupid, when I have Christ’s love!
At one time Valentine’s Day was important to me. But as I grow in Christ, I know what is important. This ambiguous holiday designed to make the rich richer is based on our need for love. I came to better understand that God is the source of all our love, and loving God and loving others are interrelated. We cannot have one without the other, and more importantly the bible tells us, “we love because he first loved us.”
I know that it is stressful enough for some who are alone. It is a reminder that they do not have that one person who loves them. So if this is you, remember that God is your provider. "God has not forgotten even the sparrows and we have more value than many sparrows" (Luke 12:6) Do not be disappointed when you do not receive a card, flowers or candy and are feeling unloved, because you have God's love(1 John 4:16. After all, the bible tells us that "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him, shall not perish but have eternal life”.
WHO CAN LOVE US MORE THAN THAT?
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