Woody Allen said, “There are two things in life that are important, the first is sex and the second...isn't that important.” When I looked at the Valentine cards in the shops this week I was a wee bit surprised at how difficult it was to get one without some sexual innuendo. Am I getting old?

Of course, as a Christian I have a fairly positive attitude to sex, but I also believe there is so much more to love. I believe God has given us romance, and patience and discovery and all sorts of things along with sex, because he knows we need them too to make a full relationship.

And I suppose there’s an even more important factor, there’s commitment. As a minister I marry folk and I sometimes wonder how much they have taken on board those vows. For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. It's a world away from what most of us are actually looking for on marriage. We're in love - we want it to be like the soppy Valentine's cards. I sometimes feel like saying, "Do you know what these vows means? If she has a stroke tomorrow, you're going to be pushing her around for the next forty years!" Oh no!

And given the tragedy of the high divorce rate I often feel like changing the wording of the vows to "till death do you part - or until someone better turns up, whichever comes first!"

Maybe it's because God knows that marriage is not easy, is not a bed of roses, that we are asked to make these vows. Nursing an invalid, or working through changes in our feelings for someone needs commitment. And If you’re one of those whose commitment is wavering at the moment, then maybe the God who heard your vows is just the one to help you keep them.

Before you accuse me of a Pollyanna faith let me acknowledge that, of course, many never marry, there are some who never fall in love, and there are a tremendous number for whom love or marriage have proved just too painful. It’s no fun to feel rejection or that you’re unloveable, to have completely trusted someone with your deepest feelings and had them discarded. I often used Bob Hope’s line, “I sent my picture to a lonely hearts club, they sent it back saying, we're not that lonely!” But in my case it wasn’t entirely a joke.

There's no simple solution to loneliness or hurt, but I'll tell you something that's nonetheless true. The opinion of the most important person in the universe is that you are lovely. My Christian faith insists that God loved us so much that he didn’t send a Valentine, he sent his Son so that we might know that he would even die for us. In the face of love like that, don’t ever think that there must be something wrong with you. God says, you'll do me just fine.