Valentine’s Day can be a day of joy to celebrate the special romantic partner in your life. But it can also be bittersweet for those who are in a period of singleness or who have lost their sweetheart, for whatever reason. It can be a day that highlights feelings of longing or loneliness, even though we may be surrounded by coworkers, friends, and family.
God exists and has always existed as a relational being. Father, Son, and Spirit have forever moved in a loving, mutual, creative, overflowing, perichoretic dance. Made in His image, we do, too. Michael Downey says this about what God’s trinitarian nature reveals to us about human personhood:
“The human person is not an individual, not a self-contained being who at some stage in life chooses or elects to be in relationship with another and others. From the very first moment of existence, the infant is toward the other, ordinarily the mother or father, who is in turn toward and for the infant. From our origin we are related to others. We are from others, by others, toward others, for others, just as it is in God to exist in the relations of interpersonal love.”
I pray that all of you, with your sweetheart or without, feel the loving relationships that surround you today, especially the warm hug of your Father in heaven!