PEA RIDGE — Valentine’s Day is this week, and our stores are filled with cards and candies just waiting to be doled out to those important people in our lives.

And while this holiday is mainly focused on a “romantic” theme, I cannot help but be aware and reminded of the true meaning of love. This past week, I have been keenly aware of three of the most important people in my life - my wife and kids.

And while I will certainly take care of the attention due to my partner and best friend in life that Valentine’s Day so diligently reminds me to do, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on the kids - not just my kids, but all kids.

Until my oldest child Trilby was born 17 years ago, I never knew what it meant to love until it hurts. This feeling was multiplied exponentially when my second daughter Audrey was born. I know my wife feels the same way. As parents, we have taken pain-staking efforts within (and sometimes beyond) our means to offer to them the very best that we can provide. This includes not only our direct duties as parents, but also trusting those with whom we place our children in their care.

Many of you know that am a substitute teacher for the Pea Ridge schools. And while I am “only a sub,” (I was poignantly reminded of this by a student one time), I take this duty very seriously, for I want the very best for every child.

I am not only passionate about a quality education, I am passionate about the kids themselves. I expect the best from them, and that can only come about if I am at my best teaching them, protecting them, encouraging them and, yes, loving them.

At a recent basketball game I was told of a situation in which a young athlete, while doing their best to play the game, committed a foul. The coach proceeded to publicly humiliate the child by pulling them out of the game, screaming at them, and making them sit at the end of the bench away from the other players, again returning to the child and continued to scream at them. I did not witness this event myself, but the actions of the coach were so over the top, it garnered the attention and disgust by many who did witness it. Would this coach have acted in the same manner if that child had been their own?

I have seen in recent years too many circumstances of parents and others who are entrusted with the care of those we love most, taking this responsibility for granted.

As a result, the kids are badly hurt if not permanently damaged. They have been called stupid, useless and worthless and, what is most unfortunate, they begin to believe it. In my work as a pastor I have counseled children who have been told that they are unlovable. How can this be?

Proverbs 22:6 says: “Train up a child in the way they should go (and in keeping with their individual gift or bent), and when they are old they will not depart from it.” (Amplified Bible)

If we train them that they are worthy to betaught, loved and respected, they will believe it, and in return they will love and respect and feel self-worth.

This week, as Valentine’s Day approaches and we are reminded of what love means, let us love our children until it hurts - that burning desire to want only the best for them. I leave you with the Biblical definition of love from 1 Corinthians chapter 13 (The Message). Happy Valentine’s Day.

“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everythingI own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others,

Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

Editor’s note: John Gibson is the pastor of Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, Pea Ridge.

Church, Pages 2 on 02/10/2010