Oh, Valentine’s day. Such a silly day really. The decorations get me though. I am a sucker for heart prints and the word love in general. The pretty pink hues are perfectly fitting, too. In elementary school it really was all about the candy attached to the silly cards that mattered. Junior high left me questioning what those silly cards meant. Was he really bananas for me? In high school no one even bothered with the cards. My friends and I tended to be boyfriendless and did our own awesome Valentine exchange. Although, reading through countless teen magazines and watching chick flicks always left me wanting my own Valentine.
As with all holidays, it is overly commercialized with red heart shaped boxes of chocolates on every shelf for that special someone and roses to boot. Do not get to wrong, I love a yummy box of dark chocolate goodness but I would much rather it come on any other day than this. It is too man dated for me.
So, this Valentine’s day I wanted to do something different and send a message to the girls in my Awana group about true love. I wanted to let them know that they are beautiful and are loved by the One who is greater than any boy who may ever attract their precious attention. I wanted to let them to know that Jesus loves them. My wish for them is to be able to set their hopes and security in Him and not the boy in gym class. This is the part where I have to say if I only knew then what I know now, ah. Love and feeling valued comes from no one else but God but you have to accept and know that in order to live it out. Thankfully, these girls get the privilege to learn about his love each week.
I made up some Valentine-ish packaging and baked some yumminess for them to remember this little lesson. I made an extra set for each girl to let someone else know that Jesus loves them, too.
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| Whole wheat sugar cookies and chocolate cookies topped with ganache, ready for packaging |
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| A small mountain of love <3 |
If you would like to share the love, download the template here.
Each design is 4” wide by 3” tall. I do not like marking the cutting edges on templates (they get in the way!), so cutting ½” off the left margin and then 4” across will give you the correct cut. Cut down 3", fold in half and you have the perfect package measurements :)
Thank you Jesus for loving me so much!
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16 (NIV)