Valentine’s Day...
And yet another Valentine’s Day is upon us...
Roses, flowers, candy, trinkets, cards, stuffed animals, dinners for two, gifts of love are the push for the day...
When I worked In floristry, we bought thousands of roses, men stood in lines waiting for flower orders or vying for the last arrangements to be had. We Literally sold every flower we had on hand...as well as stuffed animals, candy...whatever we had that may show signs of love....we hired extra people, extra delivery personnel, started a month in advance creating bows, dried flowers, vases, gifts, procuring empty space with tables to for cool rooms for flower storage...took orders over phone and wires, online, by the hundreds...flowers were ordered months in advance from the wholesalers...it was a big, busy, tiring, rewarding day/month...we went home exhausted, feet and body aching...all in the name of love...
Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day were counted as the bread and butter days for florists...we had to make it through those well to make it through the year...
But, love shown is more than a flower or a box of candy, it is a deep need. It is showing up everyday through the thick and thin of life, giving when there is no return...some times a pure act of will rather than a warm an fuzzy feeling...taking care of one another...putting lives on the line...
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35
The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
Deuteronomy 30:6
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
Psalm 86:5
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:9-12,16-19
Thank YOU....for your great, steadfast love...
https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2
Although there were several Christian martyrs named Valentine, Valentine’s Day may have taken its name from a priest who was martyred about 270 CE by the Roman emperor Claudius II Gothicus. Other accounts hold that it was St. Valentine of Terni, a bishop, for whom the holiday was named, though it is possible that the two saints were actually one person.
Although there were several Christian martyrs named Valentine, the day may have taken its name from a priest who was martyred about 270 CE by the emperor Claudius II Gothicus. According to legend, the priest signed a letter “from your Valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and, by some accounts, healed from blindness. Other accounts hold that it was St. Valentine of Terni, a bishop, for whom the holiday was named, though it is possible the two saints were actually one person. Another common legend states that St. Valentine defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war. It is for this reason that his feast day is associated with love.
Formal messages, or valentines, appeared in the 1500s, and by the late 1700s commercially printed cards were being used. The first commercial valentines in the United States were printed in the mid-1800s. Valentines commonly depict Cupid, the Roman god of love, along with hearts, traditionally the seat of emotion. Because it was thought that the avian mating season begins in mid-February, birds also became a symbol of the day. Traditional gifts include candy and flowers, particularly red roses, a symbol of beauty and love.
American Valentine's Day card, c. 1908.
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
The day is popular in the United States as well as in Britain, Canada, and Australia, and it is also celebrated in other countries, including Argentina, France, Mexico, and South Korea. In the Philippines it is the most common wedding anniversary, and mass weddings of hundreds of couples are not uncommon on that date. The holiday has expanded to expressions of affection among relatives and friends. Many schoolchildren exchange valentines with one another on this day.
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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Melissa Petruzzello, Assistant Editor.
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