Hey there, girlfraynd! (Read in best sassy Southern accent.) I have a word for you today: It’s Valentine’s Day, but you don’t need a man by your side to enjoy it.

Take it from an impartial source! After all, I’m a guy AND a wedding photographer. I don’t monologue about “girl power” just to comfort myself, and (to be honest) I actually think romance is fantastic.

But romance most definitely IS NOT..

what makes the world go around — and although we may pine for that kind of “love,” it’s not the kind of love that truly nourishes our spirits at the deepest level over the long haul.

I regret the years I impatiently longed for romance. They were depressing.. literally, I know what that depression is like. But I’m glad I held out, choosing to pursue the Father’s love and to grow (..at least a little bit?) in maturity so that (ONE GLORIOUS DAY!) I might be a better husband.

By college graduation, I began to wonder if I’d made the wrong move; being a hard-working, “good guy” still hadn’t paid off in a serious relationship. Then I met her, my now wife Eileen, in the most unexpected place — Tokyo, Japan — and sparks finally flew. Only later did we learn our families lived within an hour’s drive of each other back home in Georgia. Someone (with a capital “S”) planned that out much better than I ever could have. Less than a year later we, as serious-minded adults yet with all the giddiness of a first crush, were married.

The journey since has been amazing.. and hugely challenging. Don’t miss that second part. What with this photography studio that’s grown worldwide, the way this relationship has refined me (sometimes painfully) and made me less selfish, the blessing of raising our two daughters, travel and amazing opportunities, a son we will finally pick up from a Chinese orphanage to bring home this spring?! I strongly DISagree that any of us has “everything we need inside of us,” or that any of us is better off alone. No! We need love and we need each other. But you don’t need the weight of a time-wasting, immature romance on your shoulders.

Enjoy Valentine’s Day today, and use it to celebrate the reality of God’s perfect, sacrificial love for you. He has better things in store for you. But don’t worry about that now; just enjoy Him and He’ll take care of the rest!

P.S. Look out for the rest of this girl’s fun-loving senior portrait shoot in next month’s issue of Shutter Magazine, on shelves at Barnes & Noble. And, if you happened upon this post via my Instagram feed.. no, the Atlanta Braves have not hired me to do a subconscious promotional campaign for them. (It’s pure coincidence that my previous post was a recent portrait I made of Chipper Jones, one of my favorite players to ever play the game. (But I do love Emily’s t-shirt! O heck, #GoBraves!) 😉