What is Love

Today is Valentine's Day. A day set aside to remember those that you love. A lot of people see it as a day to celebrate the one that you share a romantic love with; a celebration of being in a relationship. I have seen all sorts of posts, blogs, and cards for the "single" people of the world. Trying to make us feel included by removing or separating us with their videos, and messages. I am single. I am single because I choose to be, and I love being single. A lot of people have a hard time understanding this, especially people who are in a relationship. People have actually said to me "I don't understand why you are single, I mean you're a pretty girl!". Really? I'm pretty so I should be in a relationship? Now, I know that people mean well when they say this. They love being in a relationship and so they think I would love it to. Maybe some day I will, but can they not understand that at the moment, I am completely satisfied with being single?


 So here are my thoughts on Valentines day, and yes, it will be about my babies! :)


I have always loved Valentine's day. I grew up with parents who made it a special day. My sisters and I always got a card, some candy, and sometimes even socks with little hearts all over them! We would write out valentines for our friends at school, and come home with backpacks full of cheesy messages. Through all my years in Africa, I still received flowers and a note from my dad. I grew up celebrating Valentine's Day as a day of love. Not as a day of "woohoo I'm not alone!". It was about chocolate and warm fuzzy feelings, knowing that I was loved.


Moving to South Africa changed the way I think or feel about a lot of things. Valentine's Day is one of them.


On February 14th, 2006, around 6 o'clock in the morning, I got a call from one of our birth mothers. She was in labour and needed to go to the hospital. We had met this birth mom a few weeks earlier. She had no place to stay and so we had put her up in the church building. She also had no one to be with her during the delivery and so I was going to stay and be her support. This was the first baby I helped bring into the world. Around 3:30 pm, my little Valentine entered the world. A big squishy boy with a furrowed brow; it was love at first site. His birth mom named him Siphiwe which means "given". As I held that beautiful boy in my arms, I cried. What a miracle! I held a brand new life in my arms on the day that we celebrate love! I understood just a little bit more, of how God feels when we are born into Hid family. How open His arms and heart are. How excited he is to receive us.


Fast-forward a year. It is February 2007. I had spent the beginning of the month in the hospital, with one of our babies who was ill. During that time in hospital, I got to know the little boy in the bed beside ours. His name was Shawn (which means "God is gracious") and he was HIV positive. At seven months old, he was skin and bones. His mom cried daily as she watched her boy getting weaker and weaker. Once my baby was discharged, I still went by the hospital every day to see Shawn, and to pray with his mother. As I picked him up one day, I could see he was not well. I had lost enough babies to know, that Shawn's fight was almost over. Later that night I got a call from Shawn's mother saying that he had passed away. On February 14th 2007, I stood in front of a tiny coffin as I said goodbye to Shawn. What overwhelming sorrow filled my heart, as I watched Shawn's mother and sister's weep over his almost non-existent body. As I stood in the small room of the church, where the service was held, I was suffocated by the love in that room. Again, I understood just a little bit more, of how much God loved me in order to let His son die to save me.


Today it is February 14th 2012. I am in Canada. I have no babies to dress in red and shower with love, but I still celebrate. I celebrate because I understand what love is. I celebrate because I have loved. I celebrate because I am loved.


Jesus loves me.


Love has actually been the study I am working on in my devotions. Trying to understand even more what love is, and why we as humans fail so miserably at it. How we can be more like Christ when it comes to loving others? Christ has told us what love is in 1 Corinthians 13:

 ⁴ Love is patient, 

love is kind. 

It does not envy, 

it does not boast, 

it is not proud. 

⁵ It does not dishonour others, 

it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no record of wrongs. 

⁶ Love does not delight in evil 

but rejoices with the truth. 

⁷ It always protects, 

always trusts, 

always hopes, 

always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails.

Read it slowly. Let it sink in. Accept it as the truth! God loves you! I celebrate today for that reason! God loves me. I also remember my babies, and I thank God for using them to show me Christ's love. 

Happy Valentine's Day!!