Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that sneaks up on you. Well, at least it sneaks up on me. The winter is rich with holidays for the Darling Family: Angela and I were married the week before Thanksgiving, two of our four children have December birthdays, and my birthday is in late January. It gets busy and . . . expensive.
And I'm guessing I'm like most men. We do the Valentine's thing sort of reluctantly. It's a bit of an eye-rolling holiday. We feel we're getting hosed by Hallmark. Think about it: Mother's Day, Sweetest Day, Valentine's Day, Anniversary. I've even heard some (very unwise) husbands (who apparently have a regular cot in their garages) say they ignore it and just "love their wife the entire year."
My advice is to . . . not do that. Don't do that at all. For one thing, your wife doesn't want to be nor does she deserve to be the only wife on the block, in her small group, and in the office who sheepishly tells her friends that her husband "doesn't do this holiday." Man up, buy a card and some flowers or chocolate or whatever she likes and do it. Secondly, we should use this cultural moment as a divinely appointed opportunity to show our wives some love. After all, we are supposed to, as Paul instructs, love our wives as Christ loves His Church (Ephesians 5:22-23). You don't very well do that by leaving the Mrs in the cold on Valentine's Day. We need these prompts, even if created by Hallmark, to be reminded to show our wives just how we feel about them, to renew our commitment to loving them as we love no other human being on the earth. Yes, it is true that love is more than show displays of flowers and chocolate and candy and balloons and teddy bears. But loves is not less than that either. Verbal expressions of love, tangible gifts are important to communicate what we say we feel in our hearts. So we need to do this. We need to make our wives feel every bit the treasure they are. I admittedly struggle with this, to show Angela just how much I love, cherish, and respect her. Valentine's Day is like a cultural slap upside the head to do what I should be doing more often.
So guys, let's get it together. I'll see you in the Hallmark aisle at Walgreen's tonight.