ABOUTCLICKS

February 6, 2012

Rabbit trail... Valentine's Day Past



It 's time to put up my Valentines decorations.  My absolute favorite is hanging the heart swag.  
It was made many years ago by little fingers, and I treasure it.

While my husband would be busy at the occasional evening church meetings, the kids and I would want to be busy about the Lord's work, too, just like Daddy.  We would work on some project together to serve others, sometimes enlisting the help of friends whose daddies may be busy serving as well.  We would have such fun!

This project started as care packages to college kids:  homemade goodies and homemade crafts - to brighten their day and to remind them that the Lord loves them.  Some kids helped with the valentine cookie baking, and others started on the paper hearts.  Each heart had part of the love-is Scripture from 1 Corinthians 13, and  then hearts were decorated with sparkles, stickers and any bauble they could find.   Two holes were punched on top then strung on a thin ribbon.

The swag was so incredibly cute and precious that after the care packages were done, we later started on one for our family.


For our family's swag, we worked on one heart per day, after dinner for devotion time.  One boy read the passage from the Bible.  And to learn how to use the concordance, another son would look up the characteristic to find more verses in the Bible. For instance, if it was about boasting, "boast" would be looked up, and then we would read more about what God said about boasting. Sometimes we would also look up in the dictionary what a word actually means. While the reading and research went on, another would start cutting out a heart and write down the verse.  And another would get to decorate.


We were able to memorize this portion of Scripture by the time we completed this daily project because we would review each day, starting with the first heart, adding another as we went along.


For many years during February, we used this swag to help with our devotion time, looking up each Scripture and reviewing what these meant.  One highlight for me was asking the kids which of the love characteristics they could see in each other - so encouraging!  And as a growing challenge, individually we would  pick out a part of love that perhaps we wanted to work on personally, with the Lord helping us.




My mom once told me after I married that "once a mom, always a mom".  She had just called to check on how I was doing and had been praying for me.


Now as a mom, I totally get it.  A mom's love has been described as ferocious as a she-bear.  It's strong and unfailing. I think that's a gift from God... as a reminder to us how great is the Father's love  for us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are!  He has a ferocious love for us, too.  So great is this love that it sent His Son (whom He loved!) to the cross to bring us close to Him.


How high and long and wide and deep is His love! His love for you never fails.




Check it out for yourself.  Here are God's own words about His love for you:  Titus 3:4-7 -  Jeremiah 31:3.
Read of the Father's love for you in Psalm 103 (a favorite of mine).  The verses proclaiming His love for us are plentiful; perhaps get out that concordance and dig in! Here's one more that is just amazing to think about:  Zephaniah 3:17.


How is the Lord reminding you of His love in His Word? 

1 comment:

  1. Karen, these are *so*very*sweet*! And such beautiful memories to go along with them! I love how you can see the handiwork of your kiddos in each heart, too :) I'm really hoping we can make some time to do this project, too - in time for Valentine's Day. If we do, I'll be sure to post some pics. :)

    Have a LOVEly Tuesday!!
    ♥Collette

    ps - we're all really looking forward to tomorrow!!

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