As a struggling young preacher, E. V. Hill had trouble earning a living. That led him to invest the family’s scarce resources, over his wife’s objections, in purchasing a service station. Eventually, the station went broke. It was a critical time in E. V.’s life. He had failed at something important, and his wife would have been justified in saying, “I told you so.” But Jane had an intuitive understanding of her husband’s vulnerability.

So, E. V. came home that night expecting his wife to pout over his foolish investment. Instead, she sat down and said, “I figure that you don’t smoke and you don’t drink. If you smoked and drank, you would have lost as much as you lost in the service station. So it’s six in one hand and a half-dozen in the other. Let’s forget it.”

Shortly after the fiasco with the service station, E. V. came home one night and saw that Jane had prepared a candlelight dinner for two. E. V. went into the bathroom to wash his hands. He tried unsuccessfully to turn on the light. Then he felt his way into the bedroom and flipped another switch. Darkness prevailed. He went back to the dining room, got angry at Jane, assuming she had forgotten to pay the electricity bill, and complained they had to eat with nothing but candles. “I didn’t have quite enough money to pay the light bill. I didn’t want you to know about it, so I thought we would eat by candlelight.”

This Valentine’s may you go easy on others. After all, “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1^st Cor. 13:7