Being Single on St. Valentine's Day

Here's a humble confession for me to make:  I have never had a Valentine.  Not once.  And many people in my position would become very bitter about the holiday because of that fact.  However, in my opinion, Valentine's Day is one of the best holidays out there!  But I have heard it said SOOOOO many times that Valentine's Day is just a Hallmark Holiday and that we shouldn't need a holiday to help us to remember to tell people that we love them.



But so what?!  You're really going to let someone dictate to you how to celebrate Valentine's Day?  Are you really going to be one of those people?  If you don't like it, then do something else.  But don't NOT celebrate love just because Hallmark is making a pretty penny off the day.



Love should be celebrated every day, that's true.  So why would we purposefully not celebrate it on Valentine's Day?  You know who wins when you do that?  Satan!  That's right!  If he can get in your head and take your attention off of love, then he wins that battle. 



St. Valentine was a real human being, who truly believed in love (God is love), who truly believed in the Sacrament of Marriage (which is a Sacrament, not a legal institution), and he truly did die because he believed so strongly in the necessity of the Sacrament which had become illegal in Rome that he performed marriages in secret, was later caught and killed for performing marriages!  What a tragedy it is that we are so embittered by the holiday now-of-days.  I guarantee that St. Valentine would be heartbroken to know that his name was associated with such hatred.  He died for love.  And sometimes I feel like, when we "hate" Valentine's Day, we martyr him all over again.



I have a lot of love in my life.  I have friends, family, co-workers, teens, volunteers and parishioners at the church I attend/work at who love me and whom I love in return.  And it's good, necessary, and important to show them that love every day, even on St. Valentine's Day.



I refuse to let this holiday make me bitter.  I refuse to be sad simply because I do not have romantic love in my life at this moment in time.  I may not have romance, but I have love.  And I will celebrate that love on this very important day.



Will you be my Valentine?  Will you show me that I'm important to you, and that you love me?  I hope that I can do my best doing just that to everyone I meet today.  Please join me.

Being Single Isn't Easy

I love the line in the movie "The Princess Bride," when the Man in Black says, "Life is pain, Highness.  Anyone who says differently is selling something."  Well that's how I feel when people write blogs or act as if being single is so great, and that it's not difficult at all.  I always want to ask them, "What are you selling?"

Maybe it is easy for them.  Maybe it is fun for them.  But let me tell you what my experience of the single life is:  it's difficult.  It's lonely.  It's scary.

Now I'm not saying that the married life IS easy.  I can't comment on that because I have no experience being married.  I can tell you, though, what I've heard, and it's that being married is also difficult.  And lonely.  And scary.

So where does that leave us?  Well, quite plainly, it leaves us with the knowledge that life is just generally difficult.  And lonely.  And scary.  But that doesn't mean that it's bad.

Yes, it's true...I don't want to be single.  I would love to be in a romantic relationship, be swept off my feet and ride off in the sunset on a horse with the one I love.  Ok, maybe not that last part; that sounds a bit too cheesy for my taste (again, not that it's bad, just not my taste).  But in fact, I do want to be in a relationship.

But if being single is difficult for you, it's ok.  And just because some people find it easy, fun and exciting, doesn't mean that it has to be that way for everyone.  We are all different, and so we all experience singleness differently.  If you are single and long to be in a relationship, than I encourage you to pray about those feelings.  All challenging things in our lives can give glory to God.  I promise you that if you use those feelings to bring Him glory, that it will change you.  No, being single might not feel any better.  But at least it will have purpose.

Please don't let anyone make you feel bad for feeling bad about being single.  Hiding, suppressing or ignoring our feelings isn't what gives glory to God.  It's ok to feel what you feel.  It's not ok to let those feelings control you.  To wallow in them.  The sit in them.  To act out because of them.  All kinds of Saints have experienced sadness and loneliness and anger, and given that to God to give Him glory.  Think about Saint Therese of Lisieux who "smiles through her tears."  That doesn't mean she doesn't feel the sadness.  She does, though, smile through it.

Through all of the things in your life, happy things, sad things, frustrating things, scary things, lonely things and lovely things, one goal should you keep:  use it to give glory to God, and all will be well.