Today is Valentine’s Day, and despite the fact that Birgitta and I live in an all-female household, l-o-v-e  is still the predominant sentiment on this day. But then, that’s true of all the days since little Emerald arrived.

Not that Birgitta and I don’t share a loving relationship. We do. But ever since last October when Emerald was born, smiles and laughter have been extra-bountiful. The baby’s gurgles often morph into our giggles, and her animated face finds us running for cameras.

When Birgitta was pregnant, I wasn’t sure if she would “take” to motherhood. Although some of her siblings have been baby-people from the get-go, she wasn’t one of them. But after Emerald’s birth, God flipped a switch of some sort within her, causing new feelings of love to sprout and quickly take root in her heart. From my vantage point, it’s been delightful to watch.

Scripture flat-out tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8), and I believe he’s the initiator of all mother-love, including Birgitta’s burst of love for Emerald. Not that having a baby hasn’t made her life much more work and a lot less play.

Going out socially is rare, and when Birgitta goes, Emerald goes, too. In every way (except attending her college classes) she is partnered with her daughter. But even with such round-the-clock baby demands, after being gone at school she’ll walk in the door and make a beeline for Emerald. “I missed you!”

If God hadn’t infused Birgitta with this overpowering love for her baby, it would have been difficult for her to summon it up on her own. The fact that he planted it there (and in virtually every mother) is an endowment of incalculable value. It goes against human logic to passionately love someone who has taken away all your privacy, your peace, your sleep, your social life, your free time and every other freedom you used to have. Yet that’s what I see happening in front of me daily.

God is, indeed, the initiator and ultimate celebrator of love, and thus of Valentine’s Day. After all, he loved us before we loved him, but that’s not the half of it. He loved us even before we existed, a concept we can’t entirely understand but are very happy to accept, and no matter what we do or don’t do, his love doesn’t fluctuate.

We might imagine him saying, “Please be my Valentine… for always.” And that’s an offer we’d be foolish to refuse.

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:16,19)