Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Dorian Dean’s cover art on our order of worship expresses that first flush of love, when we would run, swim, or ride a horse faster than anyone in the world in order to give our love to the person who claims our devotion. But love sometimes eludes us for all our lives. Or we discover it only to have it disappear. When our loved ones die, love tears our hearts. Still, sometimes even long-time lovers like myself (now married just one week short of 92 months) recapture those intense feelings, too. Most of the time, love is an invisible blanket that hugs our shoulders as we wander through the surprises of our lives.

In honor of the occasion, I want to share with you some real life love stories. I begin with the cartoon For Better or Worse in today’s Baltimore Sun. For those of you who don’t know the cartoon, it follows the life of one family. A few years ago, one of the grandmothers in the family died. Recently, grandfather has come to live with them. Today’s strip shows April, the youngest, watching her mother staring at pictures she has pulled out of an old photograph album. "Why are you taking pictures of grandma out of the photo albums, mom?" April asks. "It’s Valentine’s day tomorrow, April—so I thought I’d make a nice dinner for us and your grandpa. And I wanted to put some of our favorite pictures of her in the dining room."

"Won’t that make him sad?"

"A little, maybe. But just because someone’s gone doesn’t mean that you stop loving or remembering them on special occasions. And when we look at their photographs, we give them a hug with our hearts...because we can’t give them a hug for real!"

In the last frame, April throws her arms around her mother and gives her a "for real" hug.

That story of mature love leads right into this wonderful true story in Robert Fulghum’s book, True Love: Stories (Harper, 1998):

At the opposite extreme is the story of Ann Getz who had never found the "right" man, never married. After 56 years of separation, her high-school sweetheart, Jack Foster, contacted her after his wife died. All those years, she had kept the poetry he had written her in high school. Now they talked on the phone and wrote letters. At age 80, Ann Getz married Jack Foster. She was a lovely bride. They shared two wonderful years together before he died suddenly.

TaRessa Stovall herself never wanted to get married. Her parents had a bad marriage. She was not interested in repeating their mistakes. But in April, 1989, she and Calvin Stovall got engaged. They thought a house was more essential than an engagement ring. Since money was tight, they went with the house. Eleven years later, she told the Washington Post that Calvin had just given her a "gorgeous" pair of diamond earrings, "one for each child." She was so touched by the earrings that Calvin ran out of the room and returned with what he had intended to be her Valentine’s day present, a diamond engagement ring.

"I look at this gift spiritually" and as a symbol of their 11-year-miracle, she explained. "And I thank the universe for this man and his amazing love."

Katie Gerstle had decided after graduating from college that it was time to look for a nice Jewish boy. It was time to settle down, make her parents happy, live the good life. And she did fall in love. "[H]ard, crazily, head over heels, unable to do anything but think about how in love I was … The only problem was that my new love was a woman."

Both women had had other relationships with women, but had sworn off them. Why make life hard for themselves? And their life together has indeed sometimes been hard. Someone painted the windshield of their car with the words, "We kill homosexuals and we’ll get you too." Katie says she sometimes has to struggle with her own homophobia.

But they are best friends as well as lovers. They’ve been through medical school together, comforted one another when family members died, become parents. Katie concludes, "In choosing Jill over waiting for that ‘nice Jewish boy,’ I chose love over safety and societal acceptance. And it’s the best choice I’ve ever made."

African American preacher and biblical scholar Renita Weems figured prominently in my sermon on prayer last month. She also writes about falling in love. Both Renita Weems and her husband had been in love before. Always with the right person at the wrong time or the wrong person at the right time. Now, finally, they discovered in one another the right person at the right time.

Both were ministers. They knew the wedding vows intimately. At 37, Weems decided that she was too old to pledge to honor and obey anyone. She certainly couldn’t imagine her father giving her away. So they wrote their own vows. Vows they felt they could keep.

Hah! Within months, they’d broken their vows a hundred times. She writes:

But when the right person and the right time coincide, we must be ready. Sometimes I ask the couples I wed why they choose a minister, why they choose to be married in a church, indeed, why do they choose to be married at all? Why not just live together? After all, they will probably pay more taxes as a result of their decision to wed.

Many don’t really have an answer. It feels right. That’s what their families and communities expect. But my answer is this. As natural as it is to fall in love, loving one another for a lifetime—living together, cleaning and cooking, doing laundry and raising children, pursuing careers, and even choosing where to go on vacation together—are not. Just as we find it difficult to live with one another on this planet, promising to live with one another for a lifetime is hard. Yet loving one another—choosing to love one another—is a decidedly spiritual act. When are we more in need of getting in touch with something greater than ourselves, with that which is best in our own selves, than when we attempt to learn how to love?

John and I are the luckiest of couples. Though we, too, have broken our vows a thousand times, whenever we perform a marriage we are called again to remember the pledges we made to one another. For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, for always. Even when we’re tired. Even when we’re cranky. Even when we’re insecure. Even when we’re sick. Even when we’re lazy. Even. Even. Even. We promised not to always insist on our own way. We promised not criticize each other. We promised to take time to laugh with one another. We promised … Oh, the rash, foolish promises we made. We need all the help we can get. Reminders of the vows we made. Prayers for humility. A religious community that supports us in times of trouble. Forgiveness.

Love is a gift. When we find love, let us cherish it, nurture it, even if stays for all too brief a time. May we all love again this year, better and more wisely than last year. May love surround our lives. May our love surround others. Though we’ve broken our vows a thousand times, let us return to this place of forgiveness and hope, love and redemption.

Happy Valentine’s Day.