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I can hardly think of February without thinking of my maternal grandmother. Odd as it may seem, she looked forward to February. She was a product of the Victorian era, an incurable romantic, and she loved Valentine’s Day. Although she loved valentines of every description, her favorite were the ornate, intricately cut valentines with their lacy edges and beautiful sentiments – the kind you only find now tucked behind glass and displayed in antique stores.

I guess I inherited my grandmother’s love of valentines; but as much as I love the ornate, no valentines ever touched me like the ones made by my children. They were red and pink construction paper hearts – heavy with glitter and dripping with glue, but the words they scrawled were heartfelt. One year they gave me a box of candy hearts. You know the kind – pastel, chalky candies with words of “love” written on them. Some said, "You're Special", others, "You're Cute", and still others hinted at a slightly deeper feeling – "I like you". But the one that always caught my attention was the one that said "BE MINE!" Be Mine. It was emphatic and to the point, with no hyperbole or fluff – just a simple invitation to belong. Those candy hearts were just as precious to me as any fancy card and I still have them today, 20 years later.

If you ask the greeting card companies, they will tell you that "Love" is a huge industry. Valentines Day is one of the busiest times of the year for florists and the candy empire thrives. But wonderful gifts as they are cards, flowers, and candy are not "love". They are merely symbols – symbols of an intangible, something you can't touch or even really describe.

It was this wonderful intangible I believe Grandma was longing for. Life and love had not been kind to her. At the age of eighteen, she married my grandfather, a widower twice her age with two young and difficult daughters to raise. Neither of my grandparents were Christians, and even though she bore him twelve more children, Grandpa's callous treatment of her told a tale of indifference. In all, she had cared for a husband and fourteen children and had little thanks or love to show for it.

For ten years she traveled no further than the mailbox at the edge of the road – not even to the nearest town five miles away. She communicated by letter, and even wrote to the doctor in town describing her children's symptoms and requesting instruction. She mourned the loss of two children who died in infancy, and for all the brood around her felt quite alone. The sight of dust swirling down the country road brought hope of a visitor or at least another letter.

Maybe that's why Grandma loved to get valentines from family and friends. It was a reminder that someone remembered her and cared.

How many people today are just like that. Whether slaves to sin or addiction or hopeless and brokenhearted, they feel exiled to their own lonely world. They think no one understands, no one cares, no one even remembers.

It was for these and all of us that Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice that forever portrays what love, true love, is, for "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) He called us friends! And as each crimson drop of blood coursed down the cross and stirred the Judean dust, His arms were outstretched in invitation – "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) His selfless act wrote the love message for all eternity inscribed in red, and The Cross is a symbol of His love for us.

I can't leave the story of my grandparents unfinished, for one day my grandmother accepted Jesus' invitation to belong. She gave Him her heart - broken and tattered as it was - and He gave her the love and acceptance she had longed for. Eventually Grandpa found the Lord, too, and Grandma prayed for her children each day that they, too, would accept His invitation. She ended each prayer with, "And don't let a one be lost" - and, you know, none has.

Then one year Grandma delivered her "valentine" to the Lord in person, for she was called away to be with Him one winter's day – in February.

"…Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." (Song of Solomon 2:10) BE MINE!

May you know true love this season,

Janice Crow

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