When you hear the word love, what do you think of first? Maybe a dozen red roses, a romantic date, a sweet love note from a special someone, or a wedding that celebrates two people becoming one. I think of the song “L-O-V-E”, I am sure you have heard it. 

L is for the way you look at me 

O is for the only one I see 

V is very very extraordinary 

E is even more than anyone that you adore 

More specifically, I think about the beginning of the Parent Trap movie with Lindsay Lohan with the montage of the parents getting married and that song playing. 

This week is Valentine’s Day. Do you celebrate it as a romantic holiday? Do you use it as an opportunity to tell your friends and family how much you love them? Do you treat it as just another day? Do you do something fun like Galentine’s Day? Or do you celebrate by getting chocolate on sale on the 15th? 

However you celebrate, or don’t celebrate, February 14th brings out emotions that we may or may not have known were there. If you are happily in a relationship, you may look forward to the excuse to show off your love. If you are miserable in a relationship, you may dread having to see so many people who are madly in love. If you are in a situationship, you may be uncertain how your “friend/more than friend??” will treat the day. If you are happily single, you may celebrate Galentine’s Day with other happily single friends; or you may feel one of those random pangs of sadness about not having a significant other. Or both of those things may happen. If you are unhappy in your singleness, you may have a love/hate relationship with Valentine’s Day, knowing you would love it if only you had someone to celebrate with but currently hating it because it seems like everyone else has someone and you are all alone. 

All of those feelings are valid. If you are in a situation where you are not happy about Valentine’s Day, I am so sorry and I wish I could change your situation to make it a more enjoyable day for you. If you feel like no one loves you or you are unloveable, that is not true. You may not have a special someone right now, but that does not mean that God is not writing an amazing love story for you. Or He may be preparing you for something even better than a relationship (which may be impossible to imagine right now). If you are happy with your relationship status and excited to celebrate the love you have for a significant other or your family/friends, that is great! I hope you have a wonderful time celebrating. 

When we talk about romantic love in the Christian community, it can be easy to make love and marriage the ultimate goal in life. If you are single past a certain age, your married friends may seem to look down on you or they may stop including you in their group hang outs because you don’t have a husband. I recently saw a reel on Facebook about this. A single woman was hanging out with her married girlfriends when one friend mentioned an outing she wanted to do with her husband. I can’t remember if this friend invited another friend or if the other friend invited herself and her husband, but that started something. By the end of it, I think there were 3 or 4 couples involved and one of them even volunteered the single friend to babysit all of their kids instead of inviting her along (because she did not have a husband to join the group). This is more common than I think we realize. Even if it is subconscious, we start putting more value on the married couples and if we are a part of that group, it can be easy to forget that our single friends are just as important as our married friends. 

I have some friends I have talked to about how when people get in relationships they seem to forget about their friends and only ever want to be with their new boyfriend (at least in our experiences). In the conversations I have had with multiple friends from different parts of my life, we have all agreed that we never wanted to do that and said that we were allowed to call each other out if that starts happening. Thankfully, that has not been an issue yet in any of those friendships, and because we have had the conversation, I hope it never will be an issue. 

Whether you are single or in a relationship, unhappy or happy, I want to remind you that you are loved by God and He has a plan for your life. If you ever need someone to talk to, Elizabeth, Katelyn, and I are here. We may not always have advice or even experience in your situation, but we are willing to listen if you just need to talk. 

Abbi