Valentine's Day reflection

"The thing to remember is if we are all alone, we are all together in that too."

-Kathy Bates' character in P.S. I Love You

Valentine's Day is a fun, commercialized event which causes many men and women to spend quite a bit of time (and often money) attempting to demonstrate their romantic intentions for one another.  The holiday is often expanded to include parents and children, brothers and sisters as well as friends.  It is certainly a holiday where cards, candy and flowers are sent to establish, confirm or happily continue a relationship.

Valentine's Day demonstrates in a very real way the fact that people desire to be desired.  Everyone wants to feel wanted, appreciated and loved.  Human beings by nature are social creatures and romantic love forms one of the bedrocks of our social structure.  Marriage has existed since the very beginning and the family is the basic unit of our social order.

Yet many people spend their whole lives alone.  Some people do this by choice as they are naturally private people who do not desire the company of others or meaningful relationships as do the majority of people.  Other people find themselves in the outward appearance of happy relations, but inwardly they are quite lonely.  Just as it is a strong desire to be wanted, it is equally a strong desire to be understood.  Many people struggle their whole lives looking for understanding from their parents, spouses, children and friends.

I have often thought that, despite the busy social calendar described in the Gospels, that Christ must have been often lonely.  No one could understand His deeper thoughts, His foreknowledge, His sufferings or even His joys.  As the most unique individual to ever live, truly no one was like Him or capable of fully understanding Him or His life's work.  Because Christ was lonely, we can know that He understands our loneliness all too well.  He understands the sadness of an abandoned spouse, the heartache of a spurned lover, the tears of an unwanted child.  He is always present even in the darkest and most lonely of times.  He has taken our nature, including our loneliness, and because of that we never have to be lonely alone.