Here we are at Valentine's Day, and the commercial world is geared up for another money making season.  They know that many of us will spend money on our spouse or our significant other or on our children or on all of the above.  That is one way of expressing appreciation on Valentine's Day.  Another way is to express love to your spouse in any way that you can.  Why?  Why do we do all of this on Valentine's Day?

Someone says that we do this because we love our spouse.  In my case, as a man and a husband, because I love my wife.  Then another question might be, "Why should a husband love his wife?"  My answers are the following:  First and most obvious, I like her, and I can't imagine spending my life with anyone else.  Beyond these reasons, Paul the Apostle gave reasons in his epistle to the Ephesians why husbands should love their wives.  The first is that husbands and wives are one.  A marriage is not consummated between two people who remain separate and do their own thing  with few connections together.  No, the Christian understanding of marriage has the husband leaving his father and mother and cleaving to his wife, and they two become one flesh.  The emphasis is on one.    Husbands love their wives because they are one, a unity.

Secondly, and related to the first reason, husbands love their wives because the wives are a part of the husband's body.  No man ever did not love his own body, but he tenderly nourishes it and cares for it.  If you were to look at some of the men's health journals today, you would see examples of some of the pampering which husbands give to themselves and their bodies.  The wife is part of the husband's body, so he should nourish and care for her just as he cares for himself. 

Third, the husband loves himself; therefore, he loves his wife.  He wants a wonderful life for himself; therefore, he wants a wonderful life for his wife.  I can think of a dozen ways in which husbands and wives can enjoy life.  They enjoy each other's company; they do things together, such as concerts, opera, art museums; or camping and boating; or hunting and fishing and gardening; or traveling; or.... and you get the message.  So how should you spend Valentine's day with your special person?  Find something to do together that you both enjoy and which you might not have done recently.  Put some variety in your life and spend the time together, just the two of you. Make a significant Valentine memory for 2007 which will last forever.