There's all sorts of different kinds of love out there, and from what I here English is a unique language to express your love in. There is love for pizza, love for friends, love for family, love for a significant other, and so on. Apparently though, in most other languages each different type of love has a different word making it easy to distinguish between the different ideas. English doesn't facilitate that. Yes there are similar words such as fondness, and like, but not different forms of love. Let me expand upon this idea with a short story:
My senior year of high school I was in A.P. English Literature. Around this same time of year we were ironically reading Shakespeare's sonnet, funny coincidence...I know. Well on Valentine's day we read some love related poem/sonnet and then discussed love for a little bit. The assignment was to create Valentine's and finish the statement, "Love is..." Some of them were funny and suiting to those who wrote them, such as "Love is as eternal as pi (3.14...)." I think mine was something to the affect of "Love is always smiling." However the one that has struck me the most and still sticks with me to this day is one by a friend of mine. Although she isn't a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, she is and outstanding person who has a spiritual background. She wrote, "Love is perfect pain." I don't know what she meant by it or where her idea for it stemmed from, but it has stuck with me.
Why you may ask? Because Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior suffered a perfect pain for each and ever human to walk this earth when he atoned for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was a perfect lamb, spotless before God. It is through his spiritual pain, emotional pain, and physical pain that He, Jesus Christ, gave us the ability to choose to live with our Father in Heaven again. The pure love that Christ displayed throughout that night, and His whole ministry for that matter is called charity. It is this same charity that cause the Lord to say the following to Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer in Doctrine and Covenants 18:10-11, "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him."
The worth of every soul is great in the sight of God. Each and every one of us is of great worth to our Father in Heaven. What a blessing that is to know that Lord loves and cares for each one of us so deeply. It is unmatched.
What then can we do in return? First then, we can learn to love our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We do this through learning about them and beginning to know them through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Then in Doctrine and Covenants 42:29 we find the charge, "If thou lovest me thou shalt serve me and keep all my commandments." A simple phrase that packs the key to eternity. Serve the Lord. We do this by serving others and building the Kingdom of God on earth. Second, "keep all my commandments." We can't pick and choose and sift out the ones we don't want, but we choose to keep them all. This doesn't mean we will be perfect, but we try our best, and when we don't hit perfection (pretty much always) there is the atonement to make up for the rest. Going back to D&C 18:11, the Lord "suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him." When we fall short, or make a mistake, that is when we repent. We use Jesus's perfect pain, and perfect love for us to help us back up to where we need to be.
The love of our Savior runs deep and long, for eternity to be quite blunt. He will never stop loving you, and is waiting for you to start loving Him. Take this opportunity to evaluate your life, see the love of the Lord and help others see it to. Hopefully your Valentine's day was as good as mine and you are able to see the love of the Lord manifest in your daily life.
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