These words are probably said

more during this Valentine season than at any other time of the year.

It is supposed to be a time

for roses, love, romance and dinners out. It is a time when you let someone

know you love them through maybe a card or a call.

Have you ever stopped to think

about the words "I love you" and where "love" came

from? At first one might go back to ancient cultures and research the

mores of those who lived thousands of years ago and find out how they

handled this thing called "love."

Let's attempt to discover the

"real roots," though I hesitate to use the term "real roots"

because women world wide will immediately reach for their foreheads and

run to the mirror to see if they are "showing." (Sorry, I just

had to throw that in. To be fair, we men also look occasionally into the

mirror for our "roots" also. Isn't it fun!)

I suppose I get a little sentimental

at this season of the year since our wedding anniversary began 25 years

ago on Feb. 14 in the bicentennial year 1976. Now that you know what a

romantic I am, having been married on Valentines Day, you will know why

I like to research this term we call "love."

I know I will get into a fight

here but I know I have the finest wife and two children that a man could

have. Dee and Nikki and Robbie are the true joys of my life. They were

the real soldiers who followed me around the world for 22 years in the

military and lovingly and uncomplainingly accepted our mission as much

as any front line soldiers ever did.

They endured leaving friends

and changing schools and living in new environments from Fort Benning,

Ga., to Korea where Robbie was born. They lived in places where it was

not the end of the world, but you could see it from there.

I'll never forget when we got

off the plane at the airport in Fairbanks, Alaska, just not too far south

of the Arctic Circle. Nikki was 8 and Robbie was 6. Dee and I and the

kids drove onto the post at Fort Wainwright for the first time and drove

around the airfield which had supplied our allies the Russians during

WWII. At that time it was called "Ladd Field."

Due to the extreme cold conditions

during the winters, there were connecting tunnels under the military buildings.

During the winter months we would get into these tunnels and go to lunch

and return to our offices and never had to put on our arctic gear to go

outside.

I'll never forget finding a

truly good deal at a yard sale on a real Eskimo Mouton fur coat for Dee.

It had a real wolf "ruff" that went around your face on the

hood. The Eskimos had sewn leather figures of wolves and bears and caribou

and fish on the sleeves and around the bottom of the coat. It would have

been a very expensive coat had the people not been leaving Alaska.

Dee was wearing the coat one

morning and she had on a Arctic pullover face mask that just showed her

beautiful eyes and about all the clothes you could put on to keep warm.

It was about 30 degrees below zero when she said to me: "I know you

told me you would be taking me to strange and exotic places but this is

too much."

I wanted to laugh and cry at

the same time. At that moment, to me she was the most beautiful woman

and person I had ever met. We later came to love Fairbanks.

The words "I love you"

come very easily to many today but if you continue your research into

the term, it takes you to our heavenly Father. God's word says that "God

IS Love." So when you are even discussing the subject of love, you

are discussing Him.

It goes further to say: "For

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever

believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." That's

real love.

In closing this little epistle,

I want to say to pastors to never commit the sin I did several Sundays

ago. It was committed during the dedication service of our new church

building. I was trying to be a good pastor and recognized any and every

one who had worked so diligently in and on our church to make it all happen.

I gave kudos to everyone who

planted a blade of grass, to even those who sent $5 to the building fund,

etc. But I left out my wife. We are talking here of someone who has spent

untold days and months and years toiling for the church.

When I discovered what I had

done, it went through my mind to get on a plane and go live in one of

those Arctic tunnels under the buildings in Fairbanks, Alaska. I even

thought of a truck load of roses with a diamond in each bud. I thought

of calling Bobby Joe Gentry and finding the Talahatchee Bridge and doing

a swan dive with a streamer tied to my ankle reading, "FORGIVE ME."

Being a Christian woman she

has read Corinthians 13 where it reads: "Love keeps no record of

wrong." To God be the glory, Dee, I love you. Amen!

The Rev. Dr. Knox Herndon is

the pastor of His House Community Church (SBC) and a substitute school

teacher in the Fayette County School System, and a former Army chaplain.

The church has moved to its new location just below Senoia on Ga. Highway

85. Going south on 85 you cross Ga. Highway 16, and we are a mile on the

right just below the fire station. Prayer line 770-719-2365; e-mail [email protected].