Love during the hard times is the best kind of love
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I had the whole thing planned out. My girlfriend and I had been dating for a while and it was time to pop the question.
Camping was a big part of our relationship, so I thought I would propose at the top of Guadalupe Peak after a few days of backpacking. The weather forecasts were looking good and the view was going to be amazing.
The first day went nothing like we expected. We had chosen a pretty difficult trail, but we were pretty experienced hikers, so with the expected good weather, it should have been OK.
But the expected good weather never turned into the actual good weather.
It rained all day. A fun challenge turned into an rainy, muddy ordeal. As we approached the rim of the basin we planned to spend the night in, after having climbed for the better part of the day, the hail and lightning began. As I stood at the top of our hike, I realized it was not safe to camp up in the basin and we would have to head back down for a safer campsite.
Defeated, we hiked back down to the drive-up campsites near the park headquarters. This was not the backcountry adventure I had planned.
I made camp while Megan cooked dinner. I was glad to set the tent up because I got to take my frustration out on the tent stakes.
As my temper cooled and I began to think a little more clearly about the experience, I began to realize that I had just lived through a parable of marriage. I dug the diamond ring out of my pack and sat Megan down on the picnic bench. "I had another plan for doing this, but maybe the top of a mountain isn't when I want to know if you'll be my wife," I said. "I love you more than anyone else, and I want to ask you to be my wife when we've just been defeated. When life is really hard and we've been beaten, will you be my wife?"
Praise God, she said, "Yes." Fast forward about seven years, a mortgage, two dogs and two children.
It was the end of another 12-hour day. It was dark, and I was on my way home.
I am one of those "many Americans" you read about who suffers from depression. A couple times a year, the part of my brain that produces positive feelings completely malfunctions and everything begins to seem fraught with failure or meaninglessness. It's been going on long enough now, though, that I know exactly what to do — call Megan.
She knew what was happening about 12 seconds into the call. I told her I really needed some help when I got home because "it" was happening again. The hail was falling, the lightning was flashing and I needed a safe place to camp for the night.
That's exactly what I found when I got home.
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. It's the prescribed day of the year when we inform our significant others that we love them. Flowers, chocolate, superfluous stuffed animals, romantic dinners, new underwear and sex are all guaranteed by our social contract. It's the day for romantic excitement and good feelings.
St. Valentine, the day's namesake, is associated with romantic love because of the popular legend he performed illegal Christian marriages during the height of Roman persecution in the third century AD. He helped Christians enter into committed marriages when they faced the death penalty for doing so. Valentine is actually more accurately associated with marital commitment when romantic excitement and good feelings are altogether absent.
In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus himself pointed out how loving people when it's easy is worthless in God's economy. Love that comes because of excitement and good feelings is not love at all. It's excitement and good feelings. Love that comes because of a choice to rise above circumstance and act to help and protect those who need it is the most valuable thing in the universe.
My advice to you this Valentine's Day is to take a page from my wife's book. Love best when it's most difficult. Here's wishing everyone you love a difficult Valentine's Day and you the opportunity to love them in a meaningful way.