Valentine's Day is not a real holiday

So it's Valentine's Day (or it was when I was typing this, my apologies) again.  Let's get this day over with.  Valentine's Day, for those of you who are new to the internet (welcome) has commonly come to be referred to as "single awareness day", " d day", and "the worst holiday ever."
Personally I don't think it's a holiday at all because I didn't get school off.  In fact, here's what I did today:

Woke up and ran 8 miles.
Stretched my knee because that's been bothering me.
Went to my computing class and took a test.
It snowed.
Watched some Top Gear.
Drove through a snowstorm to buy some chocolate (for myself if you were wondering).
Got dinner at Pizza Hut with friends.
Watched more Top Gear.

Honestly for me this couldn't have been more of a typical Friday.  But leading up to this day was a different story.  About Wednesday-ish I got hit with that familiar pang.  That 'ouch'.  That 'sigh'.  That, well, I don't know that feeling you get when you're not really all that happy.  Let's cut to the point I was bummed because I was still single.

It's now been like what two years?  I mean come on ladies this is prime dating material right here!  I'm in shape too and I have a soft side and I can speak Chinese.   嘿女孩 (I also am getting good at taking pictures, so if we date expect DSLR selfies)

But here's the crazy thing. If you're reading this I'm willing to bet that at one point in your life (probably now if your a 20-something) you have felt/are feeling this too.  This loneliness.

We all want to be in a relationship.

There I said it.  Now to make a few amendments.  No this isn't true all across the board.  Everyone is at a different point in their life.  Everyone has a different life.  But yet one way or another most of us, no matter what mood we're in, no matter what we're doing, have that little hangnail of singleness sitting there in the corner of our eye.  People in long term relationships, you will not understand.  Married people, you will not understand.  Or maybe you will all understand even more.

This is the time of year people realize that they are single and vocalize this fact via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you name it.  But I would like to propose a solution.

So you're single.  And I'm single.  So we should, ummm date.  We can have all of the single women stand in one line and the men in the other and they can all pick out someone pretty (or of equal size) and get paired up.  Then we'll all be in a relationship and we'll all be happy.

WRONG.

No, I do not want to be in a relationship with a stranger, or someone I don't know very well.  Or even someone I do know very well.  Or even someone I like (for the fact I don't know them very well).

Here is a point I am trying to make:
It's not a relationship we want.  It's love.

"So you're single.  And I'm single.  So we should, ummm date."

When we get that sad feeling in our stomachs, and that little tinge of longing that comes from imagining a relationship, what we really are after is the love.  That girl or guy we have a crush on.  We don't just want to date them.  We want to be loved by them.  We want them to put their head on our shoulder, to stroke our hair, to smile.  But not out of obligation.  Out of love.

But hang on a second Jake, you are probably saying.  We get love from our parents, from our friends, from our brothers and sisters.  How is that not enough?  Why are we not satisfied?  Well answer this,  Will we ever be satisfied?

I'm going to do something crazy.  I'm going to propose a love that can't come from a boyfriend or a girlfriend.  It's a love that can only come from one man.

That man is Jesus.

Jesus, if you didn't know, was a real person (even atheist scholars can not deny his existence) who lived about 2000 years ago and willingly gave up his life to be crucified on a cross.  And he did it, out of love.

Jesus dying on the cross was the single greatest act of love the world has seen, or ever will see.  He endured torture, he went through literal Hell so you could spend the rest of your life, no, forever, with God.

He did it for you.  Not a nameless or a faceless you who passes by and whose memory is gone like the wind, YOU insert name here, he knows YOU and he love YOU.  And oh how he knows you.  He knows your darkest secrets.  He knows your deepest desires.  He sees your dreams, he knows your heart, and all of the evil, dark things about you that you try to hide, even from yourself.  This is far more than a boyfriend or girlfriend could ever know.  But yet God loves you anyways.

That is love.  That is true love.

When we get in a relationship, it's awesome for a while.  Maybe a few months.  Maybe a few years.  Maybe 20.  Maybe 40.  But then that fire sizzles out, the love for the partner may not be gone, but there comes a time when we realize we never found the thing we sought out to look for in the first place.

I believe that the love we are looking for in relationships can only be satisfied by love from God.  God showed this love by coming down to earth, living a perfect life, and dying on the cross.  And all He asks us to do is to love him back.

He's not forcing us too.  He's not tying us down like a crazed ex-girlfriend and screaming "love me!"  If anything we're the ones screaming, but we're not tied down.  And He is reaching out his hand to pick us up.  We don't deserve His love and there's nothing we can do to earn it just like there's nothing we can do to earn the wind or the trees or the stars.

You can hate God.  He still loves you.  You can deny Him.  He still loves you.  You can ignore him for years.  He still loves you.  You can not believe.  He still loves you.  You can curse, you can scream, "Why God, Why are you doing this! I hate you!" I tired that one recently (in a slightly different context than dating).  God still loves me no less.  He didn't even bat an eye.  Go ahead and try that in a normal relationship and see how long it lasts.

If you haven't yet made the decision to complete the relationship, and love God back... do it.  What is stopping you.  If you doubt God is real, I understand.  I've struggled with that myself.

"We don't deserve His love and there's nothing we can do to earn it, just like there's nothing we can do to earn the wind or the trees or the stars."

But for me it's this feeling.  I get it when I'm walking around at night, and there is no one else around, just the wind and the trees and the stars, that somehow, in someway, I am not alone.  The air against my back, and the gentle push of reality is shouting that this world, this beautiful world, wasn't just randomly assembled, but painstakingly created.  Is it a mind trick?  Is it just me wanting to believe that there is a God so badly that I trick myself into believing there is one?

When I accepted Christ a couple years ago, I couldn't stop crying.  There were tons of people around me but I just cried my eyes out, and I wanted to stop but I couldn't.  I'm crying right now when I type this just thinking about it.  Some people say what is real is only what can be measured and perceived.  I'll tell you what I felt.  I felt God.  I felt loved.  Maybe those people are right.  Maybe seeing really is believing.

I'll leave you with this excerpt from Psalm 139.  More and more God has been speaking truth to me through this verse and I hope He will do the same for you.

1 You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
17 

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!

    How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.