*insert cliche title about love*

Valentine's Day. It evokes some emotion in you. Regardless of what that emotion is, there is some emotion. Some will feel happy and giddy. Some will feel cynical or apathetic or angry or lonely or one of many other countless emotions. But everyone feels something. The holiday provokes us to feel. 

Which is a little bit sad because love (the premise behind the holiday) is not actually a feeling, but an action and a choice. Dont get me wrong. I like feelings. But. But perhaps we have the celebration of the holiday wrong. 

As I have been thinking about this holiday as it approached, I have had a wide range of emotions. Excitement at having my first Valentine's Day with my own Valentine. A bit of anxiousness about what to give. And a lot of contemplation about the holiday as a whole. 

What I have been drawn back to over and over again as I have thought about it is that we don't really understand love. We think that we do, but we really don't. So I'm drawn back to the question of what love really looks like. 

This is the picture that has come to me over and over again as I have asked what love is: arms spread wide, nailed to a splintered cross, a crown of thorns piercing flesh, a King breathing His last, giving everything to save a girl who doesn't deserve such grace, simply because she is His beloved daughter. I don't know that I will ever have the understanding to fully grasp the magnitude of this love or how to live out of that love, but I do know I will sped the rest of my life learning how to live in that love and learning how to give of that love to others. 

This is what has been dwelling in my heart this Valentine's Day, this desire to give this the greatest gift of all. Love which begs you to give all and be emptied of yourself that you may come to know the richness of what Love truly is.