Love is in the air. It’s in every song, every movie, and at this time of year, it’s on every aisle of every store in America. Valentine’s day can be a wonderful day filled with chocolate, secret admirers, and warm fuzzy feelings. But of course we know this isn’t the case for everyone. Valentine’s day can also be a glaring nag to those who are single or a painful reminder to those who have recently experienced heartbreak or loss. For many of the women we meet at Scarlet Hope, the word love conjures up a wide range of feelings, and many of them are not positive.
A daughter who was abandoned by a so-called “loving” father when she was only six-years-old.
A wife whose husband says “I love you” but also beats her up if she makes him mad.
A woman who thinks she can only love herself if she is sexually enticing and desirable to other men.
1 John tells us that not only does love—real love— come from God, but that “God is love.” This is a wonderful, amazing Truth. This means that when we walk into a strip club and tell the women there that God loves them, we also get to completely reconstruct the meaning of the word love. So we can say:
Yes your earthly father abandoned you, but my God, who is love, His love never fails!
Your husband was violent when you “got on his nerves,” but my God, who made love and who is love, His love is patient and kind.
I know you feel like you can’t possibly love yourself, but that’s ok because my God lavishes His love on you and calls you His child, and it’s a love that can’t be separated by height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation!
It has been our joy at Scarlet Hope to begin to see God reveal His true, never-ending, all-sustaining, life-changing, eternal love to the women we work with. To see women begin to love themselves, not because they’re suddenly “good,” but because they are loved by God and He is giving them their worth.
We asked some of our sweet sisters at bible study, “What does love mean to you?” Here’s what they said:
My child and husband.
Love is family.
It’s someone who is unconditionally there for you no matter what.
Love is caring about somebody enough to give something up for them.
Praise God that we are no longer slaves to the world’s concept of love. Cheap, fickle, selfish love is gone and behold, a new love has come! “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
