EP 76: After Valentine’s Day… A Plea for Perseverance

We’re just coming off a long Valentine’s Weekend, so on today’s episode of Loving Life at Home, I’m sharing encouragement to keep the love flowing all year long. The bulk of my comments are taken from an article I first published more than a decade ago. I hope you’ll listen in, or scroll past the show notes to read my original post — A Plea for Perseverance — in its entirety.

Once Valentine’s Day is Over

Full transcript from Episode 76

Hello, Friend.

Welcome to Episode 76 of Loving Life at Home. Today is Monday, February 17, We are just coming off Valentine’s Weekend, so I thought this would be a great time to talk about perseverance.

My husband had 24-hour call on Valentine’s, so the two of us celebrated a day late, on the 15^th, which also happens to be National Singles Awareness Day. Did you know that?

For years, I’ve been getting requests from readers and listeners who’ve asked me to make one of my free printable prayer guides for singles. They felt at a loss to even know how to pray for themselves or their unmarried friends or sons or daughters – especially the daughters, who often deeply long to be married but just haven’t found a suitable guy who is interested in building a life with THEM – and they were hoping I could suggest some biblically based prayers for them to pray on behalf of the singles they know and love.

So I finally got that done this year and posted it Saturday, just in time for Singles Day. I’ll be sure and link it in the show notes in case you are interested in printing a copy for yourself or for a single someone you know.

I have four daughters and three sons who fit into that category – one of my boys has a steady girlfriend, and one of my daughters is still too young to date – but the rest of these teens and young adults would love to meet a devoted Christian with similar goals who’d be interested in getting married and starting a family with them. So this prayer guide features some of the same prayers I pray for them.

Now, on the day before Valentine’s for the past several years, my middle daughter Rebekah has hosted what she calls a “Galentine’s  Party” for a bunch of her single friends. She cooks them dinner and reminds them that, even if they don’t have a husband or a sweetheart to spend Valentine’s with, that doesn’t mean they aren’t loved. Because she loves all of them, and even more importantly, Jesus loves them, so much so that gave His life to pay the price for their sin – He died, was buried, and rose again, so that they could have everlasting life in heaven with him.

Each year, she quotes a verse or two about God’s great love for us – this year it was John 3:16. Then she prays over her friends and over dinner. Then after everybody has eaten, she clears away the dishes and brings out four or five huge bucket loads of flowers she’s carted home from Trader Joe’s in Dallas, as well as dozens of different jars, vases, and other containers, and we all design our own floral arrangements.

She had about 25 ladies in attendance this year, and there were plenty of flowers for us all to make several bouquets – one to keep and one or two others to share with other single friends we know.

This “Galentine’s” party is a lovely tradition, and I’m so glad my daughter does it. But it wasn’t until this year that I realized she didn’t just make up that word or the event. There is actually a global holiday for celebrating female friendship called Galentine’s Day (or “Palentine’s Day” if you’re a guy who wants to celebrate all your buddies). It’s on February 13^th, the day before Valentine’s.

Now being single – especially when you don’t want to be – takes a special kind of perseverance. But that’s not the perseverance I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about the perseverance that’s required to keep married love vibrant and thriving. Not like a bright bouquet of flowers that may look beautiful in the beginning, but wilts and fades over time.

No, we want a marriage relationship that is more like a hearty tree, that gets bigger and stronger with every passing year.

I met a woman who has that kind of marriage just last week at the 70^th birthday party of a mutual friend. I liked her instantly, and she later texted me a sweet message about how much she enjoyed meeting me and my husband, and in the text she wished us a happy Valentine’s Day and shared a poem she’d written for her husband over a decade ago.

As somebody who’s written lots of poems for my own husband over the years – I’ll try to link a few in today’s show notes – reading what she’d written made me like her even more. So I wrote her back and wished her a happy Valentine’s, as well. To which she immediately replied: Just think. It could be every day!

That’s the kind of perseverance I’m talking about. And that is definitely a philosophy my husband and I share….

A Plea for Perseverance

When I was in high school I dated a boy who would go all-out for Valentine’s Day: long-stemmed red roses, boxes of chocolates, candlelight dinners, a bouquet of 75 red helium balloons, you name it.

Every day for the week, some grand new token of his affection would be delivered to my doorstep.

But then, Valentine’s would be over, and that would be that.

Two years older and away at college, he would go entire semesters without so much as a phone call or a post card.

Granted, this was before cell phones, and to reach me by telephone, he had to call the college switch board, who’d patch him through to the phone at the end of the hall on my dorm floor, which it would ring, and if anybody were around to hear it, they might answer, and then come knock on my door to see if I were in the room, in which case I’d walk to the end of the hall and talk to my boyfriend. That’s admittedly a hassle, so – as an adult – I understand why he didn’t do it.

But first class postage was only 20-cents back then, so he could’ve sent me some letters in the months between Valentine’s Days. But he didn’t. Which was ultimately for the best, because we both ended up finding spouses much better suited to our individual personalities. But at the time, that 51- weeks of silence stung.

The stark contrast between the over-attention I got the week of valentines and the complete non-communication I endured the rest of the year gave me a little bit of a jaded view toward all things cupid.

In my mind, Valentine’s Day is just window dressing. It’s a public display that may or may not accurately represent what is truly stored up in one’s heart.

Our most telling declarations of love aren’t made on February 14th — they are made in the days and weeks and months that follow.

When my husband brings home heart-shaped candy boxes and fancy flowers this time of year, I know that it’s (at least partially) because he knows the nurses at the hospital are going to quiz him about what he got me.

But when he brings me hot tea when I’m sick? Or starts a load of laundry for me when I’m busy? Or runs my bathwater when I’m tired? Or makes a list at work of things he wants to tell me when he gets home? He’s not doing any of that for show. Nobody will ever ask him about it. He does those things purely because he loves me and takes pleasure in demonstrating that fact in practical, everyday ways. He does an amazing job of living out Romans 12:10, which reads, “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”

I love that about my husband.

Of course, wives can be just as guilty as men of pouring so much thought and energy into a single day that little is left over for later.

Several years ago, our family was attended a weeklong Christian camp – I’ll never forget this, because my parents had come with us that year, and every morning, while the kids were doing outdoor activities with their camp counselors, the adults would listen to Bible teachers. But on this particular morning, they decided to split up the husbands and wives into separate groups in order to have a frank discussion about sex. And the woman who was there to address the wives was urging us to make our time of intimacy a feast for our husband’s senses. She suggested we light candles and play soft music and sprinkle our sheets with perfume and slip into some beautiful negligee and really make it an evening to remember – something akin to a 5-star, gourmet meal.

And, honestly, I don’t see anything wrong with giving a wife giving her husband a feast for his senses. But I did take issue with what the speaker said next, which was to claim that by putting so much thought and preparation into this special evening with your spouse, he’d be perfectly content to wait a couple of weeks before you’d need to do it again.

I knew for a fact that two weeks without sex would’ve been harder on my husband than 11 months of radio silence had been on me between Valentine’s Days. So I raised my hand to challenge the speaker on this point.

“It’s funny you should compare this feast-for-the-senses to a gourmet meal,” I told her, “because I personally love gourmet food. But my husband doesn’t. He just can’t get full on two thin slices of pork medallion artfully arranged on a plate with three green beans. He’d starve if all he got was a sporadic sampling of gourmet delicasies. He’d much rather have plain, old-fashioned meat and potatoes every single night than one 5-star dinner every two weeks.”

The other young women seemed surprised that I would speak so openly with my own mother sitting right next to me, but she happily backed me up and confirmed that what I was saying was true.

If you enjoyed an extra-special evening of romance with your husband on the 14th, terrific. But don’t expect that single interlude to carry him over until next Valentine’s Day — or even until next week.

Sometimes when a wife breaks out the candles, perfume, background music, and lacey negligees, she – like that camp speaker — is tempted afterward to think, Wow! I really outdid myself tonight! That should tide my husband over for at least a week or two!

Meanwhile, her husband is thinking, Wow! That was amazing! We need to do it more often. How about tomorrow?

So… this is a plea for perseverance. Did you kindle some sparks this weekend? Don’t let them grow cold. Fan them into a flame, then keep it burning all year long.

More Biblically Sound Marriage Tips

The Word of God is full of wisdom for every facet of life, but we’ve found it especially helpful in building a happy, healthy marriage. For a fascinating look at how science has confirmed the superiority of God’s design, check out my book Love Your Husband, Love Yourself.