You see them everywhere today.
On this special day of heart-shaped ballons and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, couples stroll hand-in-hand, couples sit gazing at one another over candlelight, couples on social media post their photos proclaiming their years of love for one another, and even shy highschoolers cast loving glances then quickly look away hoping not to have been caught.
At the crowded cafeteria breakfast table this Valentine’s Day morning, one young fellow exclaimed to the girl sitting next to him, “Fifteen dollars for a single rose? Fifteen dollars? Not going to happen. No. Absolutely not. I love you but no.”
Give him time.
And a job.
Love will win.
She’ll get her flowers.
There’s something else that you may or may not see today. But they are everywhere too.
Broken hearts.
In the Bible, the reference to ‘broken hearts’ occurs over and over. And over.
Broken hearts are everywhere.
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
And the day after that.
Broken hearts are part of our story.
Broken hearts often describe the heaviest kind of troubled spirit. ‘Crushed’ sometimes also occurs in that context. As a synonym. For emphasis.
All of which leads Barnes in his commentary to write, “The world abounds with instances of those who can fully understand this language.”
So, so ironic is what just happened just now at just this very moment as I just typed that last sentence.
I had started this article earlier this morning before going to breakfast with two of my grandsons.
Following breakfast at school, and upon returning home and retaking my place at the computer, my daughter just now interrupted my thoughts with a card.
Actually, two cards. They were stuck together.
My daughter found them among my wife’s things.
The things we are going through since we lost her to cancer just shy of 11 months ago.
The first card reads, “To My Husband. On Valentine’s Day and always, my heart belongs to you.”
The second card, stuck to the first, reads “Take each day one step at a time and time will take care of the rest.”
What are the chances my wife knew – on this first Valentine’s Day without her – and tomorrow, and the day after that, that this broken heart of mine, this crushed spirit that describes me, would need this reminder of her love.
How beautiful, David