Dear Readers,

Happy Valentines Day to you all!

I hope you’re with your loved ones spending a quiet, cosy, or a busy and bubbly time with them. Do not limit your love to only those you love. Spread it to your community. Help bring warmth, love, compassion and peace to anyone and everyone. That’s the true meaning of Valentine’s Day.

For V-Day I bring to you a touching article by Chiradeep Patra – editor, writer, friend and mentor at Candles Online where I frequently contribute articles. This is based on his own life experience and I’m sure you’ll learn something from it the way I have.

I hope you will read, share, discuss and like this.

Have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Love is an emotion that surges out of our heart and it is also an action which needs to be carried out on purpose. The surging of the love-emotion motivates us to act on it.

Sometimes in marriage, couples fail to work on their love life (not sexual life) because of too many distractions in their lives all around them and they falter to bear the burden of their nuptial knot. They don’t seem to feel the love-emotion oozing out for each other. But I believe it never gets too late to work on our love life. Let me give you an example from my married life.

I remember, once in the year 2016, I had to write an article on the topic “Love view for my significant other“. I remember how debilitated I was feeling and what my mental condition was on that day. But I somehow sat down, with a prayer in my heart, knowing that God, who is love himself, will definitely help me in this matter. And I started writing explaining exactly how I was feeling at that moment.

I wrote:

“How can I remember anything flowery and beautiful about my significant other when I am in terrible distress, have had a great fight with my wife, have terrible differences of opinion with her, can’t accept what she understands or expresses, am angry, have lost my mental peace… ???”

With this state of mind when I sat down to do my part of the responsibility for Candles Online that Saturday evening, I really struggled. It was very difficult for me to even think something worthwhile about my wife to type out. In anger, I updated this status on my Tumblr account – “WHAT WOULD BE MY LOVE VIEW FOR MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER WHEN I AM IN GREAT DISTRESS?” And then suddenly, I was prompted to start writing, keeping that status as the title of my article that day.

I had quoted a paragraph from my friend’s blog-post like this:

“The difference between hurt and harm – While working on my marriage I realized the difference between hurt and harm. A truth my husband reveals about me may hurt my feelings but it doesn’t harm me. Hurt happens and we can’t avoid it. My husband hurts my feelings more than anyone else in my life and he is literally the kindest, most patient and loving person I know. But if he loves me fully he has to hurt my feelings sometimes and vice versa. It hurts to have sin revealed. It hurts to deal with the consequences of poor decisions. It hurts to say mean words and then have to deal with the repercussions. It’s okay that I hurt sometimes because I recognize that because it hurts doesn’t mean it’s harmful. Harm is synonymous with mistreatment and abuse which is never okay.”

And this made me understand something very important that day – hurt was not with harmful intentions, though I have been hurt and produced hurtful feelings many times by and for my significant other in the past.

I didn’t have that feeling of loving-emotions surging out for her at that time, that day but I made up my mind to think of those moments which remind me about her love, to let me feel the love for her, so that I would be truthful to my readers as well as to my wife and myself.

Soon a few scenes flashed in front of my eyes as I thought for a moment with my eyes closed…

I saw:

Her unending prayers by my bedside when I am sick;  

Her unspoken and inexpressible heartache because of my physical inabilities and weaknesses;

 Her struggles of unwanted night-watching for my  discomfort; 

Her pain of carrying out undesired burdens of extra responsibilities;

 Her display of forced smiles to manage the relationships and situations in the midst of taunts from loved ones.

Everything she goes through is for me; to complete me, to manage me, to support me in life. 

You won’t believe, this deliberation helped me let my love-emotion ooze out from my heart for my love, my significant other – my wife.

I recall that day while I was writing, my wife came in between to say sorry and gave me a hug, ultimately bringing a smile to my face as well as tears in my eyes.

This is how love works even sometimes when we fail to feel the warmth of that emotion or we feel insensitive towards our partner.

In closing, I choose the wise words of Christy B who says,

“Of course, this doesn’t mean that you are failing, it’s just a small indication that you need to reassess your current situation and figure out some ways to renew your love and get back in touch. Marriage is a long haul and it’s as much about listening to each other and respecting each other as it is about confirming your love every day.”

Don’t be disheartened! But prayerfully start learning the act of loving your partner deliberately.

Happy Valentine’s Day!