A Valentine’s Prayer

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”
(1 Peter 4:8)

There is something about Valentine’s Day that gently exposes the heart. For some, it amplifies joy and connection. For others, it quietly presses on places of loss, longing or disappointment. Some will feel more loved today because of cards, flowers or kind words. Others may feel the ache of absence—of a person, a season, or a relationship that once was, or has not yet come.

Scripture does not command us to manufacture romance, but it does call us—above all—to love earnestly. Not superficially. Not selectively. But deeply, intentionally, and with grace. Peter reminds us that this kind of love has extraordinary power: it covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). Love doesn’t deny pain; it redeems it. It doesn’t ignore brokenness; it wraps it in mercy.

Today, instead of measuring love by romance alone, we widen the lens. We remember that love is present in hospital rooms, quiet kitchens, empty chairs, and weary prayers. Love shows up in perseverance, forgiveness, patience, and presence. Love is often most powerful when it is unseen.

I recently read a beautiful, whimsical, cheeky prayer by Todd Diemer on this very subject, and I hope it blesses you today. Please receive it slowly, prayerfully, and honestly:

…

“I pray today for those in love, those out of love, and those in between.

I remember especially those who find themselves a little bit lonelier than normal.

Lord, I do not pray today for loved-up couples, exchanging overpriced flowers and foil-wrapped hearts, leaking pheromones like diesel fumes at candlelit dinners. I’m pretty sure they will be OK (for now).

Instead, I hereby dedicate this happy-crappy day to anyone caring for a loved-one with a chronic illness of body, mind or soul. Lord let them be a little bit more okay because I prayed.

Flame of Love, melt our tiny, tinny chocolate hearts. Wherever marriages have grown cold, calloused with conflict or mired in the mundane, would you please rekindle the fires of a half-decent romance?

Attend to the elderly gentleman gazing at a fading sepia photograph in a silver frame of a wedding in another time. Look at him and look with him and be with him in the remembering and the unremembering too.

And, on this day named after one of your unmarried saints, would you please bring a little unexpected joy to anyone wistfully buying daffodils instead of overpriced red roses.

God of all comfort, strengthen single parents on this difficult day. Let their kids be kind, let their teens tidy their bedrooms, and if that’s a miracle too far (I realise you’ve got a lot on in the world right now), could they at least be less grumpy and initiate a hug at bedtime?

And so, may the arms of love, flung wide on the cross, embrace the unlovely and unloving parts of my world, my work, and my life today. Forgive me, I pray, for this cheap, hysterical, isolating thing I have sometimes made of love, of life, and of You.”

…

Today, take time to pray for the lonely, the struggling, marriages under pressure, homes fighting to stay together, and hearts learning again how to hope. This is love that looks like Jesus—outstretched, compassionate, and strong.

Believe & Confess Meditation & Declaration

I walk in earnest love, because Your love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). The love of God has been poured into my heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). I am strengthened and comforted by the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3–4). Where relationships are strained, Your peace guards my heart and mind (Philippians 4:7). I choose compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, clothing myself in love (Colossians 3:12–14). The arms of Christ stretched wide on the cross hold my life securely in redeeming love (John 15:13).

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