Happy National Hug-a-Single Day!

That was the subject of one of the many spam emails that float into my inbox on a regular basis. At first I was confused. What is "National Hug-a-Single Day"? Then it hit me. Today is Valentine's Day.

I've had many great Valentine's Days in the past and, for most of them, I've been single. All in all, I have nothing to complain about because I enjoy being single and it means that there is no pressure for me to do anything out-of-the-ordinary today. To me, Valentine's Day is a day when I get to ponder love and eat more chocolate than usual :). 

I've already written a post about singleness here so I won't go super into detail about it but I wanted to comment a little bit about how our world pities those of us who don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, or partner of some kind. "National Hug-a-Single Day" implies that people who are single, such as myself, need a hug today, which could be legit (read more here) or not. Perhaps because we should be wallowing in self-pity because we have nobody "special" to love us or show love to and therefore require a hug to comfort us. I challenge this thinking because I know I am loved first and foremost by my heavenly Father and also by many people in my life and I don't feel as though I need a "special someone" all to myself to make me feel content or more loved. Plus my parents got me chocolate today so I don't feel left out ;).

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 

- 1 Corinthians 13