Unconventional Romance

Its Valentine's Day again. Are you excited?

I wasn't. I'm not still. It's the one day out of the entire year when people celebrate that blessing (to those who employ is correctly) and curse (to those who misuse it) called romance.

Romance. Its a lovely word, I won't deny it. However, to those of us who have never experienced the conventional romance, that word can be a torturous, receding, seeming never arriving term--and it can also be a painful, heartbreaking term to some who have known a little and yet lost it. Its a word that brings on many different types of emotions in people all over the world.

I won't ask you, but I know for myself, the word romance is a beautiful expression, but a painful one as well. Not because I ever experienced it and lost it...not because I'm pining away for it... But because I see it in the world all around me, and have to view it constantly. In church, at prayer meeting, and everywhere else; and frankly, it hasn't touched me. Conventional romance that is...

There's another type of romance. Yes, read it again if you have to.... There's more than one type of romance.

Have you ever experienced unconventional romance? I know I have.

For example, the wind in the tops of the trees--a gentle breeze whispering through the evergreens lofty heights, almost a tune that you could sing to...

Or the pound of ocean surf as you walk along the shoreline, foaming up onto cool sand and then receding, erasing the footprints behind you....

Or the power of a high mountain majesty, viewed from it's base, and looking up to its summit and feeling the awe of something that is so much larger and higher and more rugged than anything man can create....

Is that romance? I say yes. And that romance was the kind that was in the beginning... God created it as surely as He did conventional romance--and in a way, unconventional romance is almost more precious.

But then, what about coming home after a long trying day and finding a feast set out on the table, complete with candles and confetti stars and little cards and a few small gifts, and having two of your housemates rush around fixing things up and then come running to your room, all smiles, and announce that they're ready? Is that romance? .... I think so...

It's the unconventional romance that touches your heart most... Often it will leave the most indelible footprints on your character that never are erased. It is unconventional romance that makes people what they are.

But Valentines Day isn't just a day to enjoy the beauty around you... It's also a day to tell those you care about that they mean something to you. It's a day to celebrate friendship; to let people know that you really are so happy you know them, that you love them. It's a day to tell your friends you're there, and you care, and that they'll "always be in your heart". Always...no matter where they go or what they do. Saying "Will you be my valentine?" just is another way of asking "Will you be my friend?" That too, is unconventional romance....

So, Valentine's Day: a day to celebrate conventional romance. I'm single at present, and while that may change two or three years from now, I'm content to be so for now----just so long as I can continue to enjoy the unconventional side of romance with my friends, my family...and my Creator--the One who loves me best.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. Never forget that you are special to someone... even if that Someone is the One who holds the universes in His hands......