Sabbath Rest for Valentine's Day with John Eldredge

I've been saving this one specifically for today...I knew I wanted to share it on Valentine's Day from the first time my eyes scanned the words. This text is from John Eldredge's book, Epic.

If you learned about Eden in Sunday school, with poster board and flannel graphs, you missed something. Imagine the most beautiful scenes you have ever known on this earth...Then imagine all on the day it was born...

We have grown dull toward this world in which we live; we have forgotten that it is not normal or scien-tific in any sense of the word. It is fantastic. It is a fairy tale through and through. Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow? At what point did you lose your wonder at it all? Even so, once in a while something will come along and shock us right out of our dullness and resignation.

We come round a corner and there before us is a cricket, a peacock, a stag with horns as big as he. Perhaps we come upon a waterfall, the clouds have made a rainbow in a circle round the sun, or a mouse scampers across the counter, pauses for a moment to twitch its whiskers at you, and disappears into the cupboard. And for a moment we realize that we were born into a world astonishing as any fairy tale.

A world made for romance.

Creation unfolds like a great work of art, a masterpiece in the making. And just as you can learn about an author by the stories he tells, you can learn a great deal about an artist from the works he creates. Surely you see that God is more creative than we can possibly imagine, and romantic to the core...

I daresay we've heard a bit about original sin, but not nearly enough about original glory, which comes before sin and is deeper to our nature...We remember, if only faintly, that we were once more than we are now.

God created us in his image, with powers like unto his, own--the ability to reason, to create, to share intimacy, to know joy. He gives us laughter and wonder and imagination. And above all else, he endows us with that one quality for which he is most known.

He enables us to love...

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!