Online Reporter
Cuthbert Mavheko, [email protected]
On Saturday (February 14), Zimbabwe joins the international community in celebrating Valentine’s Day. The day, which is also called St. Valentine’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is highly esteemed by a significant number of young people around the world, particularly those who are dating towards marriage. Valentine’s Day is celebrated annually on February 14. On this day, gifts, confectionery flowers and love messages are exchanged between lovers around the world, all in the name of St. Valentine.
On February 5, this scribe received a WhatsApp message from one Zvishavane resident, who identified herself as Anele Mbongeni, which read: “Thank you very much for the article titled: ‘How to have a happy marriage in an unhappy world’ (Sunday News, December 14-20, 2025). The article was so inspiring and informative. It helped me understand what we should do to have a happy marriage. I am 23-years-old and am in love with a 25-year-old guy.
Recently, he bought me a ndorindori cellphone and a Valentine’s Day card with this message: ‘You are my life; you are my angel and the girl of my dreams. I love you with all my heart, sweetheart.’ While we are very serious and seem to love each other very much, the painful truth is that my boyfriend is now saying I don’t love him because l refuse to have sex with him. This has left me in a state of confusion. Does he really love me or is he just interested in sex?”
As Valentine’s Day draws closer, the question that now crops up is: What is the real meaning of true love? This is a question being asked by many young people today. According to one study, true love fosters a connection that goes beyond the superficial. It’s a bond that often involves each other’s core values, beliefs and life goals. This connection creates a sense of companionship, where both partners feel they are on the same team, working towards common dreams.
One marriage therapist, who has counselled dozens of married and unmarried couples in Masvingo for many years had this to say: “True love is not the surge of warmth one feels when near the person he or she adores. It is not the physical excitement, the rising pulse rate, the blushing, the nervousness. It is not daydreaming about the person when he or she is gone, nor just admiring the person when he or she is near. These are merely physical and emotional responses, triggered by our body chemistry when we are in the company of an appealing person of the opposite sex.
They are only feelings — happy, exciting, powerful feelings, yes — but they are just feelings, not love. True love is much more than emotions. It goes much deeper than emotions and sensations. And this is where many people go astray. They confuse the feelings and emotions of romance with love. This is a tragic mistake.
“Real love must be selfless. When you love someone, you want the best for that person. Your objective is not to get something from him or her. True love isn’t concerned with getting money or gifts from the other person. True love means trying to do what is really best for the one loved. Real love also survives trouble. The type of love that vanishes when there’s hardship or misunderstanding in a relationship is not true love. It is just a passing, selfish, romantic interest. Although it is accompanied by romantic feelings, real love does not die when the first excitement of romance decreases. Instead, it takes root and grows as the months and years pass. Over and above this, true love is not blind.
It sees the other person as he or she really is, with faults as well as good points. Only in this way, can one see the character of the person, and decide whether he or she is the one with whom to share the rest of his or her life.”
What offends my own sensibilities as a Christian is the fact that so many dating couples today have swallowed — hook, line and sinker — falsehoods being peddled by some morally-bankrupt people that dating and sexual intercourse automatically go together. It is a sad but undeniable fact that illicit sexual intercourse before marriage, called fornication in Biblical terminology, is becoming epidemic among many young people in today’s permissive society. This behaviour, which is so common — yet so destructive — is raging like an uncontrolled veld fire in our communities, leading to a spike in teenage pregnancies in the country. It is of paramount importance to state that young men and women, and adults as well, who engage in illicit sex, before or after marriage, seem unaware that they are breaking God’s seventh commandment, which says: “You shall not commit adultery”(Exodus 20 verse 14). It is essential to understand that this commandment covers in principle all other forms of illicit sex, including male and female homosexuality, which is now flourishing like flowers in bloom in some countries.
Hindsight shows that yesteryear, the Zimbabwe United Methodist Church (UMC), described as “a betrayal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” a decision by its motherbody to recognise homosexuality. This was after the General Conference delegates of the United Methodist Church in the US voted overwhelmingly in favour of homosexuality.
Homosexuality is a weird practice, which, apart from being an antithesis to Zimbabwe’s cultural being, defies God’s spiritual law, which approves of only two lifestyles — heterosexuality within marriage and celibacy, while, at the same time, expressly forbidding homosexuality. The plain Biblical truth is that God abhors homosexuality. Leviticus 20 verse 13 says: “ If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death.”
In signing off, let me remind my fellow compatriots that the most important thing to remember in marriage, or when dating towards marriage, is to involve God. You should study the Bible regularly and live by every Word of God. You should also pray to God regularly, with sincerity and with all your heart. Whenever you find that God commands you, in His Word, to do something, you should immediately say: “Yes, Lord” and not argue or evade the issue as so many falsely professing Christians are doing today. Your attitude should always be that of Jesus Christ, our perfect example: When He was called upon to give His very life, He said: “ …Not my will, but thine be done”(Luke 22 verse 42). Despite the widespread criticism you are likely to face when you set out to obey God, keeping God’s laws ultimately produces every joy and reward you could desire (Psalm 19 verse 7-11). Many people who have decided to obey God’s laws can heartily validate this incredibly good news: God established immutable spiritual laws that, if obeyed, will produce happiness and love in marriage as in all other human relationships. But breaking these dynamic, living laws brings unhappiness and misery. I rest my pen.
*Cuthbert Mavheko is a freelance journalist and theologian. He can be contacted on 0773963448/0775522095 or email [email protected]
