Loving your Girls on Valentine’s Day

A Note from Lifeway Girls: Valentine’s Day is a week away, and there is no better time to show your love and demonstrate the love of God to these girls. The culture (ahem…the Hallmark industry) has really given Valentine’s Day a bad reputation, and it’s often easy to just try to stir clear of the day and all the stuffed animals and candy that go with it. But, your girls want to celebrate it and they need you to come alongside them in doing it the right way. We hope today’s post will instill a desire and some creativity in making an effort with your girls on Valentine’s Day.

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Valentine’s Day. You just never know how these days will be for your teen girls, right? For some girls, a day like this simply passes by like any other normal day with little thought or care for it. However, for some girls, it will feel like it is the total end of the world.

As much as we’d like to, let’s not stir clear from it. Instead, let’s take full advantage of the Hallmark holiday and use it as opportunity to love our girls and point them to Jesus in the season surrounding Valentine’s Day. How can we do that?

Talk about love.

Talk about dating and talk about sex.  They already are.  It is all the more helpful when what they are hearing comes from a healthy place.  But even more so, talk about what real love looks like.  Talk about Jesus. Talk about God’s design for love and sex.  This could be a great opportunity to start a new Bible study with your girls centered around these ideas.

Plan activities to love them like their father loves them.

Watch a movie, decorate cookies, or plan a game night! Or, maybe what they really need is a worship night to reflect on the Father’s love. It doesn’t need to be complicated, but these kind of activities can be purposeful in loving your girls and helping them understand more of the Father’s love for them.

Remind them their worth is so much more than their relationship status.

Valentine’s Day doesn’t actually have to be focused on romance and love. It’s important to discuss with our girls the love and value God has for them. Be intentional to discuss what God’s Word says about their worth and value. We want them to know that they are beautiful, enough, smart, capable, and gifted in their God-given callings.

Also, talk about what it looks like to love yourself well. Valentine’s Day is normally focused on external love, but let’s not forget to teach our girls about how they can show love to themselves. Like how can we love our bodies well?  How do we speak kindly about ourselves?

Encourage them to begin now praying for the man they will marry.

Your girls are more than likely not dating or they aren’t dating the man they will one day marry. Nevertheless, show them how they can look forward to that day down that road with joy knowing God has the perfect husband in mind for each of them. You could encourage them to write a prayer for that future husband to remind them to find contentment in the waiting.

Nothing was more encouraging for me in high school and college in the moments of wondering when my turn would come than to pray for my future husband.  I began a journal when I was 13 writing out prayers for this man, and it was so helpful throughout the years to come back to as reminders of who I have prayed for and so sweet to read now as I see this man every day.

Lean in with your struggling ones.

I often struggle with leaning in with one when I know I can’t do the same for all of them.  But you know the one.  The one who just walked through a bad breakup or the one whose best friend just betrayed her for a boy she had a crush on.  Reach out and tell her you love her. Take her to coffee and let her talk about her feelings. This would provide the opportunity for you to help her take her eyes off the situation and back on Christ and His Word.

We know this list doesn’t encompass everything that you could do to love your girls on Valentine’s Day. If you hop over to our Pinterest page, we have a board dedicated to gifts that you can give your girls for Valentine’s Day.

Remember, you know your girls best. Choose something that would be meaningful to them and do it well. Then, pray that the Lord would use whatever that may be to take your girls’ eyes off the fleeting love of this world and back on the eternal love of our heavenly Father.