Picture of My Valentine's Day Gifts

    A year or two ago, I was going through some old photographs I found.  These particular photos were ones I had taken with a camera my parents got me circa 1985.  You know the type with no flash that you could drop a hundred different ways without breaking it.  It was a treasured possession, as was the film that I rarely received for it.  I treasured that camera even more, because I could use it to take photos of my other gifts, and that's what I did.  In the small stack of photos, several were dedicated to documenting the gifts I had gotten for various holidays.  On the back of each one was scrawled (in sloppy grade school script) the date the gifts were received, from whom, and what each thing was (including the names of any stuffed animals included in the photos).  Gifts have obviously been important to me from a very young age.

     Another married Valentine's Day came and went today.  Mark and I had agreed ahead of time that "for REAL this time" we weren't going to bother with gifts for Valentine's Day, our birthdays, our anniversary, Mother's Day or Father's Day.  We had done a similar thing about Christmas gifts, but we both ended up surprising one another with a cheap gift on the actual day.  So I wasn't sure how V-Day would go.  I was thinking tonight about how drastic the difference is between the woman I used to be with regard to gift-giving/receiving holidays and the woman I've become.  My expectations have changed drastically and not because I've given up or resigned myself to the idea that those days will usually end in disappointment on one or more levels.  Rather, I've been made able to choose to truly lay down my expectations about the day, and each experience betters me at that as I learn to root out those expectations that sometimes like to lurk quietly in my subconscious. 

     So, as I sat in my bed tonight more contentedly than I ever recall being after Valentine's Day, God brought to mind all the things that would've been on my "wish list" of possible romantic gifts in past years and the priceless gifts that have so easily done away with that list.  Here's the picture of my gifts this year.

• No perfume but the fragrance of his scent as he pulls me close.  
• No flowers but the beauty of the life-giving manner in which he treats me and our children.
• No jewelry but the adornment of wearing his name and the gift of his constant work at polishing the reputation that goes with that good name.
• No chocolates but the sweetness of his presence and the taste of his kisses.
• No massage gift certificates but the tenderness of his touch.
• No trips away but his heart close to home.
• No grand gestures but the steady dependability of his character.
• No money but the gift of his generosity towards all.
• No Valentine's Day card but genuine acts of everyday love that daily form the foundation of selflessness on which all true loving sentiment is built.

     Last night we watched a documentary called Honor Flight in which there was a segment about a WWII veteran talking about the impact of his love for his wife.  He was widowed when his wife of 53 years was affected by ALS... a wasting illness in which you lose all musculoskeletal control over a period of time.  His wife battled ALS for 7 years before she succumbed to its ravages shortly after their 60th anniversary.  He displayed a book of poetry and notes he had written for his wife throughout their marriage.  He said that he had never been good with words, but that when he thought of his wife and asked God, the words just came to his pen and he wrote them all down.  He said, "Throughout the course of her illness, I never asked God to spare her life. I only asked for my life to be spared long enough for me to take care of her throughout the duration of her terminal illness." He later said, "Close to the end of her life, a hospice nurse came to check her over, and she said to me, 'How long has she been bedridden with this illness?' And I replied, 'Seven years.'  That nurse couldn't believe it was true, because her skin was in such good condition - without bedsores or dryness."  And as his voice broke and tears welled up in his eyes he said, "I was pretty proud of that."  He saw his duty to care for his wife as the greatest privilege of his life, and he took great pride in how well he did it. He attributed his genuine love for his wife and his selfless acts of care toward her to His Lord who helped him love his wife the way God Himself would love and care for her.

     Maybe you wonder why God didn't just heal her for both man and wife' sakes.  Real life isn't about cultivating good circumstances.  It's about cultivating good character.  Our season on earth isn't spent to make us happier or wealthier or more popular human DOINGS. It's spent in making us BETTER human BEINGS.  It'd be great if we could become better by focusing more on self, accumulating more goods, consuming whatever tastes good, and doing whatever feels good.  However, the unwritten laws of philosophy on this planet prove out that true happiness and contentment AND the development of good character lie not in self-pleasure, self-actualization, and self-assurance but rather on this one thing:  denying self utterly.  Graciously giving and receiving is the key to accomplishing our greatest purpose.