Doesn’t it feel like January and February just flew in a wink?!  Spring should be here soon….I hope.

I guess I’m ignoring the truth that Punxsutawney Phil already determined weeks ago that it ain’t going to warm up anytime soon.  So it was no suprise that I did not want to get up out from safety of our warm cozy bed for church on Sunday morning just yet.

Alas, the oasis of that early Sunday morning was invaded by our two kids barreling into our room and joining us under the covers.  It is one of the few times during the week when we have some breathing room at the start of the day together (church is at 9:30am vs. 7:55am drop off at school on weekdays!).

The one thing that surprises me every time about my kids are just how astute they are at noticing things.

Of course, my daughter immediately urged me, “DAD!  Move over! Move over!”  Standing my ground, I didn’t budge.  It was time to try harder and burrow deeper to make a big burrito with myself and any scrap of the blankets I could snag.

But that’s when she insisted: “Move over! You’re on top of something!”

And sure enough, there it was. . .

Sticking out from beneath my pillow was a red envelope.  Where did it come from?

It certainly wasn’t from the tooth fairy!

It turns out that my wife had stuck a card under my pillow early in the wee hours of the morning before I awoke this morning.  And I was too wrapped up (literally) in the comforts of our blankets to have noticed it.  Good thing we had kids.

On this brisk March morning, I was treated to a sweet Valentine’s Day card.  Knowing that I was in the middle of a very hectic and critical week, she shared some notes of inspiration and support right when I needed it most.

Valentine’s Day had actually come and gone.   And we’ve celebrated many a Valentine’s over the last decade together.  But this was the most precious Valentine’s I have ever received from my supercalifragislitic- aspialidocious wife!

Why?

Because she captured the essence of Valentine’s Day in it’s most genuine form:  expression and honor for the love you hold should be weaved into the living relationship.

It was then and there that I realized we have been trained by popular culture (or those sometimes wacky people called “marketers”) to schedule explicit expression of affection to a season. . .so much so, that it’s limited to a given day!

Liquid Church’s Tim Lucas recently dealt with various aspects of authentic love in relationships.  Related to this theme of authentic love, this small but significant gesture that my wife did early Sunday morning is the pinacle of how we choose to carry out our relationship.

She taught me a lot about what organic love is about that morning:

• Love is a continuous action, not a finite event. It is not something we can limit to 1 out of 365 days, 1 out of 12 months or even 1 out of 4 weeks in a month.
• Love is dynamic, not something you can schedule. To express true love, we must be open to surprises (and creating them too).  Don’t let boundaries or pre-conceived notions constrain and rule over it.
• Love is evolving.  It is organic at it’s core - we should see love’s continuous movement and be willing to follow it down paths we haven’t gone before.  There are plenty and different honeymoons ahead.
• Love is personal and precious. My wife elevated love to it’s highest height by understanding what I needed.  She could not have done that without being intimately connected and sharing what I’m facing on a daily basis.

Once you realize that it is Valentine’s Day today, your relationships can undergo a real shift.  What are you doing to celebrate?

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