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He Loves Me, He Loves Me Notby Nora CharlesIt's the one day of the year expressly designed to allow lovesick men and women to liberate themselves from the constraints of daily life and let their real feelings creep into the light of day. Valentine's Day captivates us with the very first utterance of "Be Mine." My first grade teacher, Mrs. Williams, had each of us decorate our own little brown bag the week before the Big Day. After covering them with crayon hearts and red glitter she taped them to the chalkboard. Smiling at us with a gentle expression only an elementary teacher can give, Mrs. Williams outlined the rules, "If you plan to bring valentines you must bring one for everyone and not just your friends." That's the way it should be. Valentine's Day without the possibility of rejection. So on the fourteenth, we each arrived at school with 25 little white envelopes. Some kids brought the kind that were decorated with animated characters--Strawberry Shortcake saying, "You are berry special" and Barbie saying, "Happy V-Day, Let's go shopping." The best ones were filled with those candy hearts bearing messages like "NO WAY" and "LOVE YA." Mrs. Williams let us eat them during class. As I grew older those same message hearts greatly increased in their significance. They became complex codes which perhaps hid the shy affections of that boy sitting across the classroom. Suddenly, the words "STAY COOL" could suggest all the passion of Romeo speaking to his Juliet. Out of the safe and loving world of recess and nap time, however, I learned that Cupid's arrows do not strike everyone. Although your mother thinks you're just beautiful and your daddy gives you roses, it still doesn't make the possibility of rejection any less real or terrifying. When I reached high school, Valentine's Day had been replaced by "Carnation Day." If you received a white carnation, it was from a friend. If you received a red carnation...well, you were one of the blessed, chosen few and adored by someone. While I knew in my mind that selling those flowers was really the student government's thinly veiled capitalist plot to raise money, my heart and the hearts of the entire student body knew that somehow these carnations became symbols of one's worthiness and desirableness. As a veteran recipient of white carnations, I can tell you that receiving them was almost more humiliating than not receiving any. (Trust me. If you didn't receive any, you could at least pretend you were just too "above it all" to participate in these "childish games"). Some of the girls who had been given red flowers would parade around, holding them carelessly as if all affection heaped upon them was commonplace and a little tedious. Some wore them in their hair as if to advertise, "Look at me, I am the most loved." Secretly, they were all revelling in the envious stares of girls who clutched the cursed stems of white blooms...or none at all. As far as I was concerned, St. Valentine had shattered my dreams of becoming Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Even thoughts of the ugly duckling who had eventually become a swan failed to be a consolation. So, after my first "Carnation Day," I decided that he was my personal enemy. I am now in college (a place of supposed emotional growth and personal awakening). However, my callousness still prevents me from seeing Valentine's Day as anything other than a cheap plastic rose and romantic sincerity about as convincing as "roses are red, violets are blue." I would like to take this opportunity to point out that violets aren't really very blue anyway. My roommate, a diehard romantic, and I really battled over this one. When she thinks of Valentine's Day she sees an opportunity to show everyone how much she really cares--delicious words revealing depth of feeling and so on. I am relatively sure that this difference of perspective can be attributed to her lack of exposure to "Carnation Day." Whatever your take on the fourteenth of February, there is one thing that finds all participants (reluctant and otherwise) in agreement: We all like to be loved, whether we prefer to show it on a day dictated by the calendar or not. In college, we women spend a lot of time contemplating that desire, talking about that desire until 2 a.m., writing about that desire, and seeking its fulfillment. When the sweet smell of roses and chocolates began to filter on to campus my freshman year, I reacted in my usual cynical manner by raising my nose in contempt of the pink teddy bears I saw in the supermarket and groaning at the TV commercials promoting CDs containing the "greatest" love songs whose covers depict smiling couples sitting in luxurious reverie in front of a blazing fire. In a moment of truth I realized that maybe I wasn't merely taking a high moral attitude about the commercialism of American holidays. There was a part of me that was still painfully aware that Valentine's Day is not entirely warm and fuzzy. We all hope that we might receive a foil-covered box or a bouquet. These things suggest that we are loved, cherished, respected and appreciated. Those words make the heart beat a little faster. Let me say them again: loved, cherished, respected and appreciated. See what I mean? Regardless of lifestyle, most women, deep down inside, seek these same things. It is part of our nature to need them, and their absence makes us feel rather empty. When we are deprived for long enough, we stop thinking that we deserve to be loved and so on. Since emptiness is an unpleasant sensation, our tendency is to fill the void with things that seem to feel like love, at least for a little while. We treat Valentine's Day, attention, and very often physical involvement as replacements for the real thing.
This is certainly not to say that you should go on a mission to destroy your local Hallmark. And it's also not to say that Valentine's Day can't be a built-in reminder to tell those closest to you that you love them. What I am saying is that we sometimes get confused by things which promise to fulfill us (like getting a fistful of red carnations). But they don't, and they weren't created to. True love and satisfaction comes only from the One who actually created us to have these needs: God. If you are familiar with a certain Julia Roberts film, then you will remember the scene where she refuses a less-than-ideal proposal by saying, "I want the fairy tale." She is not alone. We all want the knight in shining armor who swoops down from his stallion, sword flashing, and saves us from the grasping claws of the dragon. Knights never say, "Gee, that's too bad...a fire-breathing monster...well you see, I have this duel and my time's just all booked right now..." Knights always protect the honor of their ladies, and never tarnish it. Knights are faithful without exception. I would suggest that this is exactly like God. He offers the ultimate "happily ever after." God's love is perfect and complete. He is patient and kind. He is never jealous, never arrogant and never brags. God is the definition of love. He knows the best way to love us because He made us. God was the one who created you with the desire to be loved, cherished, respected and appreciated. However, He will exchange the "love" in the past that has left you unsatisfied for a perfect and real love which you don't have to earn or even deserve. Best of all, His love offers no possibility of rejection. You may be saying to yourself, "I've done so many stupid things, how can someone like that love someone like me?" The truth is that God can't see your mistakes. There's nothing you can do that will make Him go away. That's nice to know isn't it? Yes, God is perfect and perfectly just and our mistakes make us unacceptable to Him. Which makes sense. Wouldn't you be outraged if a Supreme Court Justice allowed all of the convicted felons to go free? Would we expect any less from God? The difference is that God is more like a judge who, having justly convicted us, took off his robes and served our sentence. He did this through His Son, Jesus Christ. By exchanging Jesus' sinless life for our sinful ones, He erased forever our mistakes and bad choices. So, God can't see all of those things of which we are so ashamed. All of those times I have messed up? They're gone as far as God's concerned. God won't give up or get impatient with us. He has no ulterior motive except to invite us into a relationship with him. God offers the total package--real love, real forgiveness, real satisfaction and real happiness....forever. The End. © 1997 Every Student's Choice Nora Charles is a junior at Davidson College in North Carolina, majoring in Political Science. This Valentine's she once again expects to receive too many white carnations.
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It's interesting, however, that the more we
accept those imitations the emptier and more undeserving we feel. I have found
that there is a point when we convince ourselves that what we really want is
impossible to find, we are foolish for expecting it, and above all we don't
deserve it. It's as though we put a price tag on ourselves which says
"discount" or "damaged goods." If we give the message that we don't deserve
real love, who will disagree? We tend to get exactly what we ask for.
Unfortunately, there are all too many guys who are thrilled to find women who
expect very little but will give much in return. These are women who have
bought into the lie of their own worthlessness. And after all is said and done,
do these women feel loved, cherished, respected and appreciated? Fulfilled?
No. We feel a little emptier and a little more alone.