My valentine

Today I'm choosing to celebrate true love. Not romantic love, not friendship love, not temporary love, but the real deal. It's been years since I believed in fairy tales, in someone fulfilling our "dreams come true" hopes for love. There's really only one lasting, unfading love I've tasted, and it hasn't been from another person.

This love has witnessed every moment of my life, even created it. This love has watched me grow through the years, has been beside me learning to walk and learning to get up after I fall. This love has bandaged many boo-boos and held me through many boo-boos too big to bandage. This love has sung over me in my sleep, painted thousands of brilliant sunrises and sunsets, never one the same. This love has danced with me in sheer joy and huddled with me in sadness. This love has been with me behind closed doors when I haven't let anyone see the real me. This love has steadied my boat in the stormy seas. This love has bottled my tears.

This love has coached me to get up and keep walking when I've been on my face. This love has whispered true things to me when my mind has been swirling with confusing lies, has held a mirror up to show me who I am when I see nothing but blur. This love has been with me on my worst days, on the days I can find nothing to love in me. This love hasn't made promises and not kept them. This love has planted dreams in my heart and then said, "Do it, I'm with you." This love has been in question, sadly, too many times, and though feelings of disappointment have come and gone, this love has never truly disappointed. This love has remained steady and faithful through a barrage of doubt. This love has held nothing back from me, has freely faced death and the grave for me, so that I could freely live. This love lives forever, every day showing me glimmers of eternity, of what real love is.

So today, on the day of love, I want to celebrate that love. Not because I'm bitter or cynical about Valentine's day, but only because I know this love has no limits. It's not a mirage. No, it's not that pool of glistening water in a molten desert that flashes seductively from a distance, getting your hopes up, so that when your thirsty self comes near, you find nothing to drink from after all. Today I'm celebrating that there exists a real pool of water to drink from in my thirst for love, and it's a pool that never runs dry. I'm celebrating that only one love can ever fill my cup. Only one love is everything it claims to be. And I don't need balloons or flowers, stuffed animals or chocolates, candlelight dinner or a beautiful card to let God know He's my valentine.