With Valentine's Day approaching I have to assume "love" is on all our minds. Valentine's Day isn't a big holiday in this house.It's not that we are against it or anything it's just never been a holiday we go all out for. Thankfully I have a husband who is very good at showing his love everyday and it's not with anything he can buy. He shows us he loves us by working hard and providing for us, he shows me he loves my by forcing me out of the house to get a break or doing a night feeding and he shows the kids he loves them by investing time doing things with them. While I don't think we should need a holiday to show our family we love them, it is a nice excuse to do something extra special for them...whatever that may look like for your family.
With love in mind and thinking about how I feel loved I wanted to set some time aside and look outside of our family and do something for others...to remind them they are loved and thought about. For myself, while gifts are nice and always appreciated, I feel most loved when people go out of their way for me. When they set time aside that I know is valuable and do something for or with me. So we sat down and used time that was valuable to us and set it aside to make Valentine's for some special people in our lives. Time is not only valuable its limited so we didn't have time to make some for everyone but we did choose a few people who we felt led to do something special for. Having found a really cool necklace making kit at a ridiculously low price and since my kids do not get to see their cousins often we thought it would be nice to remind them they are loved so I had each of the boys make a necklace for each of the girl cousins. Jena even made one for my mom (who is recovering from knee replacement surgery) and my sister who lives in CA. They also made Valentines Day cards. I'm so thankful that I have kids who never grumble about sitting down and making cards or gifts for others. They are so sweet when it comes to this and usually want to continue and making cards for people who were not originally on the list.
I hope by doing little activities like this with the kids that we are instilling in them the ability to look beyond themselves and what they want or need and instead become focused on the needs of others. It is so easy when holidays roll around to think about ourselves. What I want, what I need, what I want to get out of it. I hope to train myself and our kids to instead think about what someone else needs and who we might encourage or bless. I want to encourage you this Valentine's Day to go out of your way to show someone you care, someone who maybe could use an extra dose of love. We all have seasons in life where we feel down and not as loved as we did last year or our circumstances change in such a way that we feel alone. Try to be sensitive to those around you and their circumstances and think about being that blessing to them. Think about going out of your way and being that person who makes them feel extra special loved this Valentine's Day...even if it's only for one day. I can almost guarantee the feeling of love it brings them will last well past a day!
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,
but by love serve one another. ~Gal. 5:13
No comments:
Post a Comment