What’s your Valentine symbol?

What’s your Valentine symbol? 

Thinking about symbols and Valentine’s day has caused me to consider what symbol best reflects being loved. The heart is the default, followed by candy, flowers, and cards.

I’m older now. Love is more than an encouraging word or a shot of energy. In the past I loved being loved by receiving what I desired. I know now that love often gives me what I don’t desire. Love gives the best, not just the desired. I guess I’m entering the salad years of life.  Those years when burgers and fries are what you desire but salad is what you eat if you love yourself and those around you.

In image terms, I think the cross is the best symbol of love. The cross shows me about the sacrifice made, the life given for me. A giving that centers on God but involves people around me.

Most of us have people who have loved us like the cross. People who have spent their life in intercession, helping us move, cleaning water out of the basement, sitting with us in the hospital. They may have brought us a box of candy or a flower, but what they gave us was themselves – sacrificially. They didn’t just drop something off and go on with their life. Like Jesus, the gift they gave was their life.

My wife is a cross to me. Not something I bare, but something I see every day as an expression of giving love. I sometimes miss the days of my youth. The days when my life was all about me and the love I wanted was centered on meeting my desires. But old love is deeper, steadfast. Being loved sacrificially requires us to look deeply at what is being given. If we want to see it, we must look deeper than the colored box or dangling ribbon.

I’ve enjoyed deep love for a few decades now. A love that cares for me when I can’t care for myself, a love that gives when the giver is tired, busy, tending to a thousand other demands to give. I see the cross, both of Christ Jesus and my wife. I see more than a heart. I see sacrifice. More than candy, care.

This year my Valentines dinner may be salad. My candy may be twenty minutes of cardio. But the hands next to mine will reflect the hands of Jesus. The scars may not be as deep, but they are there. Marks of sacrifice, care, and steadfast love. Loving someone from the heart is good. Being loved from the cross is life changing.