Love Gifts

[xxlsheep]

Love Gifts

The stores are full of lacy valentines with someone else’s verses; pink and red tributes of borrowed love to share with someone dear. But I long to send real love gifts as abundant and lavish as the love I feel. Unfortunately, my resources are few and my imagination limited by time and space. Still, it would be a delight to send the kinds of valentines I receive all through the year. They are the outpourings of a heavenly Father’s love, lavished upon a child not always appreciative of their abundance.

In the depth of winter I awake to the shimmering iridescence of icicles, strung with precision along my eaves. No hand-cut crystals could rival their faceted beauty. Pierced by the brilliance of a winter sunrise, they shatter the morning with light, casting rainbows upon the feathery snow. No earthly king or potentate could ever own such dazzling wealth. Along the fence and on each weighted bough spill frosty diamonds – treasures flung with abandon here within my reach.

When winter’s frozen splendor begins to slip away, trickling in silver rivers across the stones from the rooftops, His valentines of spring appear. Emerald leaves thrust up from rich black earth, parting to display the amethyst and topaz of crocuses. Golden daffodil trumpets call in silent eloquence and ruby tulip chalices fill with rain-wine. Ebony forsythia branches drip with gold, and soft gray velvet buttons dress the pussy willow shoots. Extravagant love gifts spread before me, offered with the rare perfume distilled from earth and dew, from bud and bloom.

God is a lover in the deepest sense; a giver of gifts without regard to the worthiness of the beloved. The abundance of His summer bears this truth as tapestries woven in brilliant greens flutter in the blue expanse of summer skies. Majestic oaks and maples, aspens and elms play the winds like virtuosos as they whisper eternal melodies finally tuned in light and shade. Brooks babble over stones polished by a master’s hand, an ever-changing instrument. And evening urges crickets in syncopated symphonies as old as stardust. Summer’s valentines unfold with rich abundance, stroking the senses with the harmonies of eternity, and building to the inevitable crescendo of fall.

Properly heralded, autumn enters, a riot of color, flaming in a passionate crimson and purple. Pumpkins rest like hidden treasures in withered fields. Apples hang in red and yellow splendor, weighting twisted boughs with autumn’s wealth.

When amethyst skies enfold the earth, autumn silently presents her finest gift. The burnished disk of a harvest moon glides across the sky in benevolent affection – crowning glory of a golden day.

These are the kinds of gifts I long to give: valentines that fill the heart with hope and love. Yet all I have are paper cards with borrowed verses.

Then, reminded by a gentle breeze, I see the truth that all His gifts make known. God’s valentines are just His love expressed in life. And though I’ll never cause a bird to sing or bud to bloom, I too can share expressions of my love. There is no season limiting forgiveness, prayers, a kindness undeserved.

These are the valentines I can give all year.

~ Pamela Kennedy ~