Happy Valentines Day

Lately, I have felt led to be more intentional about making family traditions. The memories of these traditions will hopefully be a lasting reminder of the love our family has shared through the years.

I am reminded of the commands God gave to the Israelites to impress upon their children so they would learn and not forget what God had done for them. How He delivered them from slavery. (Deliverer) He destroyed their enemy. (Protector) Daily He provided them with manna. (Provider)

These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all His decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Deuteronomy 6:1-2

Love the LORD your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:5:9

In the Jewish culture they still carry on many of these same traditions that remind them of their God. So I thought what better holiday to start with than Valentines Day.

We started earlier this week by making Valentines for the elderly that we visit. We like to go through the bible and pick out just the right verse to go on each card we make.

Here is Seth with his finished cards. We deliver Meals-On-Wheels once a month with our home school group. We made the cards to go with the meals. If you have kids that are home during the day this is a great service project to do with them. They love kids! Every time they open the door and see the kids their faces light up with a huge smile. We deliver meals to bless them, but every month WE end up being blessed too.

The next thing we did is the night before Valentines Day I had everyone write something positive about each family member on a separate piece of paper. It could be anything they like about that person or a talent/gift that God has given that person. After all the pieces of paper were collected and everyone went to bed, I cut out hearts and wrote the positive words on them. Then I taped them to their bedroom door for them to find in the morning. It was really fun to watch their reactions to what was written on their hearts. I had plans to take the hearts and put them in separate notebooks for each person to keep their collection each year. Unfortunately I never got around to getting the notebooks. I may still do it, because I think it would be great to have a collection of positive comments about yourself so that when you are sad or down you could go and read what others think is good about you.

The last thing I did was bake a cake with a heart and cross. We talked about Valentines being about love and how Jesus is love. The white icing on the cake represents Christ being without sin. The red heart represents His great love for us and that He shed His blood to pay the debt for our sins. The cross represents that He died on the cross so that we might be able to have a relationship with our heavenly Father and live with Him for eternity.

Mike also had a short devotion on love that went along with the cake theme. I plan on making this a tradition we do every year as a reminder of what Christ did for us.