A Prayer For St. Valentine’s Day

A Prayer for St. Valentine’s Day

February 14

O loving God

Who never lets us down

And never lets us go,

We thank You for the gift

Of loving another.

For we know we love our spouses,

Our friends, our children

Because You have first loved us.

Lord, we pray our kids would know

Just how much they’re cherished

By their earthly parents

And by the perfect love of their heavenly Father,

Who loves with a maternal and paternal spirit.

We pray our children would know us

By our love.

We pray that our children

Would know what it is to grow up

Surrounded in love,

For we can teach them lessons

And facts and figures and theories

To explain all the world,

But if we don’t have love,

We are clanging cymbals,

Lost in the noise.

As we raise our children,

Help us to be patient and kind.

As we raise our children,

Help us to be humble and gentle.

As we raise our children,

Help us to be forgiving and compassionate.

As we raise our children,

Help us to be protective and trusting.

As we raise our children,

Help us to be hopeful and persevering.

Help us to love bravely

And to model what it is to keep choosing love,

Even when it’s not easy—

Especially then.

May our children know the gift

Of loving another

And being loved fully in return.

We know we love imperfectly,

But we pray that Your perfect agape love

Would fill the gaps

When we fall short.

O Lord, we know that to love another

Is to be vulnerable.

And we feel it,

The way generations and generations

Of mothers and fathers have felt it before us—

The way our hearts drop and chests tighten

And we knew we were forever changed

By the glorious gift of loving another

Not because of what they can do

But simply because they are.

Lord, we know You love us with

A lavish love and glorious grace,

Not dependent on what we do

Or what we say.

Thank You for Your love

And for leading us on a path

That brings us to You.

O Lord, on this day of St. Valentine,

We come to You.

And if we pass on a legacy, Lord,

Let it be one of love

For You and for neighbor.

O Lord, let our children know us by our love.

1 Corinthians 13; John 13:35