Valentine's Day is Overrated

I haven’t always done the best of job at guarding my heart. Actually I’m not even sure what that means, and if I did I doubt that I would know how to do it. There’s a proverb that says to guard your heart above all else, so obviously its an important thing to do. I’m not talking about the muscle that pumps blood through our bodies and keeps us alive, though it is important to guard that too--Thank God for ribs. I’m talking about that part of us that lies at the core; that piece of you and me that gets all warm and fuzzy inside when your mom gives you a hug or your grandpa tells you a favorite story…or when that special someone looks at you and smiles. The heart. If I were to be reduced to my lowest form, like a fraction, what you would have left is my heart.
I think that the problem of guarding your heart lies in the fact that it is complicated, and though it can’t be solved with pen and paper it is sometimes just as complex and confusing as a mathematical equation. So, needless to say, dealing with my heart sometimes gives me the same feeling as doing calculus. I don’t know how and so I get frustrated.
Over the years I’ve had a few run-ins with the opposite sex. I’m not going to lie. I like girls. They’re pretty, they smell nice (girls smell like roses when they sweat), and they flip their hair. Not all girls are pretty by the same standards, some girls smell more like honeysuckle than roses, and some girls have short hair and can’t flip it. However there is one commonality between all females. They’re crazy. You might say that after that last statement that I haven’t learned much because that statement will most likely get me in trouble with the opposite sex. Allow me to explain.
My friend Courtney Vallentine, who is actually a guy, is one of my favorite people in the world. I believe that if you gave him a pirate ship with a crew of ninja turtles and nothing but chocolate milk to drink, he’d be happy. He’s a child at heart and loves the Lord. We share the same view on many things in life and he is one of my closest friends. Courtney Vallentine has a theory. I’m not sure if he made this up or if he got it from someone else, but either way I like it, and after telling him another sad sob story one day he told me this, “Bryne, guys are like waffles and girls are like spaghetti.” Yes. That makes perfect sense. He went on to explain to me what he meant. “Its like this: guys put things in categories. We put things in sections. When we see a girl we put them into a box of some sort. Like the little boxes in waffles. Your mom goes in the mom box along with grandma and your auntie. Your sister and that girl next door that you’ve known ever since you were able to remember go in the friend box. Then there are those girls that go into the girlfriend box. Every girl you ever meet will go into one of those boxes, and once they’re put there they can’t be moved easily. Kind of like syrup. Once you pour the syrup in and let it soak, it doesn’t really leave whatever box you put it in…until you eat it.” He looked at me with a smirk. “I’m hungry now buddy.”
“As odd as it sounds it makes sense my friend. Now tell me the spaghetti part. I want to know what that’s about.” My mouth perked up at the corners while thinking of the possibilities.
“Oh that one is easy. They’re absolutely bonkers.” He looked up at me with a smile and I nodded in agreement. “Their thoughts are tangled up and connected everywhere and to everything. Just like spaghetti noodles you know?” He twirled his arms together in front of him to illustrate this. “You can’t just pick out one noodle, you have to twirl the whole bunch together. We should order pizza. I’m feeling ninja turtle.”
I tell this story only to prove a point. Guys and girls are hopelessly different. Neither Courtney or I have the best of track records when it comes to girls (although he is now married...so he figured something out), and we are far from being any sort of experts on the matter, but I do think that he was onto something there. Not all guys are exactly like this, and girls, like the illustration showed, are definitely anything but understandable. I believe that this is ultimately where a lot of problems in relationships occur. This gap. This total disconnection of understanding from the opposite sex. We are attracted to each other, but completely unable to understand each other at times when it would be most beneficial. We’re not even in the same meal category.

***

My friend Courtney played a trick on me once. It was very creative, completely random, and quite thoughtful. I remember getting done helping out with a youth group, where I had most likely thrown a child or three into the sand of the volleyball courts, and then consequently got tackled in retaliation, when I walked out to my truck to head home. As I walked up, pulling my pockets out to empty the sand in them, I noticed that the hood was covered in brightly colored candies. I got a little closer and realized they were the Sweetheart Conversation Hearts. I searched everywhere for a note or a letter to explain who had sabotaged my truck like this, and I found nothing. I drove home without removing any of the candies thinking that they would fall off by themselves.
After a little bit of investigation on the matter I learned the next day that Courtney had done the dirty deed in hopes of framing a certain girl that I was dating at the time. It had worked long enough for me to return fire on her by putting Almond Joys on her car the next day. Anyway, I am very lazy and I forgot to clear off all the candy, and a few days later it rained. Then, within 10 minutes after the rain, (dang that New Mexico weather) the sun came out and baked the candy onto the hood of my truck.
I tried to pull off each candy heart and found them more than a little stuck. I gripped a little heart with my fingertips like a vice and strained with all the might my hands could, all the while growling at the stupid saying on the heart, “True love doesn’t let go!”. Finally, with a surprisingly loud crack, the heart flew off and I fell onto my butt in my driveway. I got up and rubbed my rear end and looked at my truck hood. A perfect green heart shape remained on my truck.



A pastor once said that the way dating works is horrible. He talked about how the average American has at least 5 major relationships before marriage. That can’t be healthy, because in each relationship a piece of your heart gets left behind and that by the time you get married you can’t even give your whole heart to your spouse because 5 chunks of it have been left with 5 different people. As I listened to his sermon on the topic I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to believe him. I’ve been in 3 major relationships already and the possibility that I’ve left 3 pieces of my heart behind scares me. However, as I stood looking at the crusted up green heart shape left on the hood of my truck I realized that maybe he was right.
But I started thinking about hearts and them being broken. And I thought about the fact that no matter how hard we try they keep getting broken…it’s either that or we harden them until they don’t feel anything. I thought about all of the things in this world that break our hearts--failed relationships, tragedy, dreams that don’t come true…the list is essentially endless. I thought of all the ways girls are crazy, and guys are dumb and how that mixture fails. And that when they do get together it usually ends up with broken hearts. And then I thought about how people like to say that Jesus fills the hole in our hearts….and that doesn’t sit well with me…because even so my heart gets broken. I don’t think that is the right metaphor to be used.
In fact, I’d venture to say that that metaphor is wrong…even if it is well intended. I think our God is bigger and better than that. In Ezekiel 36:26, God issues a promise: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” I like that better. Because God has fulfilled that promise-- 1 Peter 2:24 “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.” Its because of this miracle--That God loved us and chose us--that we can move forward and press on. God not only saved us, but He renewed our hearts…and continues to do so.
So if you find yourself like me…unable to guard your heart…unsure of how to. Worried that it may be broken beyond recognition or repair, join Paul in this cry: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” Turn to Him. You won’t regret it. God is good--He will be your eternal Valentine.

Remember

Sometimes I think that I should've been born in the 80's—okay, so I WAS born in the 80's, but I wish that I'd lived to remember most of them. As it is I was only alive for 3 of those glorious years. But looking back at the pictures of my parents in the 80's; the hair, the colors, the cars—the shorts—it just makes me wish that I grew up then. And oh the music! There's something about hair-metal that grips me. I love the falsetto screams and guitar solos that ripped through the airwaves back then. If only I were alive for the 80's.

That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the music that was played on the radio at work today. Someone in the back switched the radio from the pop-station with its incessant looping of Kesha, Lady Gaga, Lil' Wayne, and Justin Beiber, to the classic rock station. I was so happy. All day I sang along to bands like Def Leppard, Chicago, and Foreigner—but what really got me thinking was Journey. The song “Lights” came on, and for that 3 minutes and 11 seconds I stopped. I walked back to the break room and simply stopped to listen. It was beautiful. “Whoa ooohhh oh oh oh. When the lights, go down in the city, and the sun shines on the bay—ooh I wanna be there, in my city!” Those words played over the soft buzz of talking and the loud clinking of dishes in the kitchen at Cracker Barrel, and my heart sang the words along as my mind travelled back to when I was a kid in the truck with my dad on the way to Bonita Lake in Ruidoso. It made me think about all the good times I had with my dad and brother in the past—all the wood-hauling trips. The trips to Allsups. The smell of sawdust. My dad. His mustache. And I found myself smiling in the breakroom—simply reminiscing of those days when a trip to the lake with my dad was the one desire of my heart. PB&J's and Coca-Cola and orange powerbait. The smell of fish. Getting a nibble on my pole and reeling in moss-covered sticks. Getting nibbles on my pole and actually reeling in fish. My Mickey-Mouse pole. Dakota falling into the lake. Catching crawdads. Memory after memory flooded me as I sat in the breakroom and it was all I could do to keep from crying out of joy. I love my dad so much.

And it dawned on me that remembering things is a good thing. I'm not talking about having a good memory, but I'm talking about not forgetting the things that have passed before. The things that have occurred to make us who we are today. I think that we sometimes shy away from remembering things of the past because as fallen creatures we go too far and begin to live in the past rather than just remembering. But its important to remember things—in fact God mentions rememberance over and over again in His word: (Deuteronomy 5:15) “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” And again, (Deuteronomy 7:18) “But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.” (Isaiah 46:9) “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.”

We tend to forget where we come from. We tend to forget what it is that made us who we are. When my dad calls me just to tell me that I have a bill to pay, or he calls to tell me to check the oil in my car. Or he calls me and tells me that the news says the roads are icy—instead of getting annoyed at these things I should remember that he loves me. Remember the time that he saved me from the port-a-potty because the door locked and I was too short to unlock it. I should remember the time that he carried me inside when I busted my knee. I should remember the countless times he baited my hook for me. Remember the hours he spent playing catch with me. The countless times he read stories to me at night.

I think that's why God always tells us to remember what He's done. To look back at the wonders of His power. To look back and remember it was Him that carried us through our troubles. And to remember that it is He who delivered salvation. This is why I will daily surrender to this one memory—I will daily remember this: (1 Corinthians 1:22-24) “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” I will remember that it was His body on that tree—broken for my transgressions—and I will remember that it was He that rose from the grave—it is Jesus that loves me.