A Valentine's Day Prayer


Today is, of course, Valentines Day. It's the 24th such Valentine's Day that Cheryl and I have spent together -- we will have been married 24 years in July! The love we share today has matured and is different in many ways from that young love of nearly a quarter a century back, but it remains strong and abiding.

In honor of the day, I share a prayer on Love by Sharlande Sledge:

Love that will not let us go,
we rest our weary souls in thee.

This week some of us have traced
rainbows through the rain
and finally looked up to see
the colors shining after the storm.
Others are still longing for
signs of hope to be made real to them.

Loving God,
hear our prayers for those
who need the sound of your love
spoken clearly into their winter-wear souls.
Too many days our attention has settled
on ourselves instead of focusing
on your invitations to love others.
May our responses to your love be love.

With our whole hearts,
let us spend our love with abandon
and risk our love with no thought for our own gain
so that our neighbors will know your caring love,
the hurting will know your healing love,
and those who we say we love
will know that indeed we do.


From: Sharlande Sledge, Prayers & Litanies for the

Christian Seasons, (Smith and Helwys, 1999), p. 34

To Cheryl with much love!
To my neighbor whom I'm called to love as well.

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