The sky was a perfect shade of pink. Valentine’s Day pink, if you will.  It just made me smile to see it. Felt as though it was a little Valentine from the Creator of Love that “loves us with an everlasting love.”  A love that doesn’t waver. A love that is not based on us.  It is not based on our understanding of it, or ability to earn it or grasp it or contain it.  It is merely a gift that is ours for the taking.

Like a beautiful pink sky that may be seen but not noticed or appreciated, God’s love might be a reality that is never acknowledged.  But that doesn’t negate that it’s there.  Love that is everlasting doesn’t change with the wind.  It is a gift.  An incredible gift.  Just like every breath we breathe.  Just like every beat of our heart.  A gift.  A gift to be given and enjoyed and shared and celebrated.  We are that gift.  We are who He loves. “He has loved you with an everlasting Love…”

Our love?  Well, it can waver for sure.  Opinions will waver.  Views will change. Feelings will ebb and flow.  Life will change us.  But true love that mirrors the love of Christ?  It is committed and sacrificial.  It is hopeful and joyful. We can base it on appearance or chemistry or physical attraction or experience or success, or a million different things.  But God’s love?  It is based on His character.  He is Love.  IS.

Everlasting.  That’s a word beyond my comprehension.  Being love?  That is beyond my understanding as well.  But receiving love?  That’s something that I’m choosing to grow in.  Just like I smile with appreciation when I see the pink sky on Valentine’s Day, I smile as I know and feel and read in His Word about the million little and big ways that He loves us with an everlasting love. As with any gift, the Giver initiates, but we must choose to receive.  So it is with the Lord.  He knocks, He speaks, He calls, He leads.  It is ours to answer, receive, believe and walk.  I am learning to not only receive that love, but truly believe that love…that He truly does love us.  It is the greatest gift ever. Not just the call as a Christian, but the truth that He Loves us with an everlasting Love.  Ever Lasting.

So, Happy, Happy Valentine’s Day.  May this be a year when you and I grow in the awareness and joy and truth that God so loved….the world and that world includes you and me.  And that awareness?  That can make all the difference…in how we see our world, whether it be a pink sky, or child’s smile, or a devastating circumstance.  We can filter what we see and feel and think through the Light of God’s love.  And our view, our world view, will be transformed.  “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 1:9)  And that?  That makes all the difference.