For a different spin on Valentine’s Day for the group, I invited in a divorced single mom to lead them in an art project. Too often Valentine’s Day has a focus on young love. I wanted to redirect that focus toward an act of love to those who have suffered a loss of love. That would be the widows and single moms in your church family.

I invited a crafty person from our church family who is also a divorced single mom to lead this art project. Finding this person was a great resource for the entire project. She provided a lot of that crafty stuff from her own supplies for the teens to use, but she was also able to help me know better what supplies to purchase for the group. I found this direction to be a big help.

On the day that we met, she opened by sharing the verses in the Bible about widows and led a discussion about why we should be supportive of widows and older single ladies. This lesson hit home when she added her perspective about what it is like to be a single woman with such difficulties as loss of income, difficulties in getting things done around the house and the sense of loss, especially during holidays.

After that mini-lesson and before everyone started making valentines, she also introduced to everyone the art idea of Praying in Color. This is a prayer practice of praying for someone while you are using doodles, art and creativity. She taught us that she didn’t want us just to make valentines, but to also be praying for the person the card was being made for and that we could do this as we worker on our projects. I believe everyone responded to this as once we started making the cards, there was a lot of silence.

This lady also cleverly wrote verses and other valentine verbage to help the teens who might not know what to say, but more so to inspire the teens to dig deeper to find the right words to write.

Finally, everyone was released to create valentines for the person to whom each was assigned. Each one was unique, and I envisioned them being a treasured keepsake.

Then on Sunday morning, the valentines were personally delivered to some honored and shocked ladies. Seeing their faces as the teens handed them their own valentine was precious. Watching them sneak peeks at their valentine during the rest of the church service was a blessing.