When is Valentine’s Day, again?
I started writing this post exactly a year ago but I’m far from finishing it. I wonder why?
Perhaps my half-heartedness is a result of my being acutely aware of how commercialised this whole notion is of celebrating your loved ones on this one day. How fake and unreal it all seems.
Still, as Valentine’s Day draws nearer I feel obliged to wish you Happy Valentine’s Day.
I say “I’m obliged to” because honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever believe in it.
I don’t believe in saving all your love for that one day. And I certainly don’t think it ends when the clock strikes twelve.
On a much deeper level though, I guess I’m still wondering about and I’m still heartbroken over the breakup of couples who have raised families with beautiful children and have been married for years and years. Did they just wake up one day and decide that they don’t wanna be together anymore? What happened?
I think I found my answer in Mathew Kelly’s The Seven Levels of Intimacy.
Essentially, a sense of common purpose is what keeps relationships together. So when that sense of common purpose is lost, relationships fall apart.
Question is, what ought to be every couple’s common purpose?
Some couples get together out of convenience – they’ve been together forever, for others it may be because of the lure of riches or sex. Still some couples share this vision of raising a family but now that they’ve achieved that goal, they find that they have nothing left in common. Which is tragic, to say the least.
Before Jedidiah and I got married, we had to go through several sessions of pre-marital counselling and we learnt very early on that the primary purpose of marriage was to glorify God. To reveal and demonstrate His unconditional love for us to the world, through the institution of marriage.
It’s not about us, period.
We also learnt that contrary to modern conventions, marriage is still very much between one man and one woman (the same one) and marriage is permanent.
We love not only when things are going our way, but we love especially when things are not! I can go on and on about this but I’ll leave this discussion for another time.
In my own circle, I find that the best relationships are those where couples celebrate each other continually and help each other be the-best-version-of-themselves. After spending considerable time with these older, more mature couples, I can’t help but find myself asking how can I help Jedidiah fulfil his dreams? How can I help him use his gifts and talents to the fullest? How can I help him be the best he can be?
Cuz that, to me, is true love.
And that, to me, is fundamentally the meaning and purpose of any relationship – to help challenge, encourage and inspire each other to be the best that we can be.
Get that right and you’ll be amazed at how rewarding all your relationships can be!
Happy Valentine’s Day, again!!
Love,
Lynette Tan
