Ash Wednesday falls on February 14 this year: Valentine’s Day. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Meanwhile, Valentine’s Day is a day filled with gestures of love. The convergence of these two events is a rare happening, but it’s also an opportunity to creatively remind children of God’s love for us as the season of Lent begins.

The tradition in my church is to share a simple supper before our Ash Wednesday service. After the meal is over, we clean off the tables, and communion elements are placed on the table. We eat soup, bread, and grapes together with our church family, and I always enjoy the gentle nod to communion through the warm rolls and grape bundles that we eat that night.

For the service, ashes are prepared by burning the palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday procession. A cross of ash is placed on parishioners during the service with the words, “From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.” This rite can be frightening to small children who are not yet able to understand death without fear and worry. A pastor friend of mine always adds, “and God always loves you” when she places ashes on children.

The rarity of both these days falling at the same time offers a way to remind children that “God always loves you” by making a simple craft. The last time Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday were on the same day, we made paper hearts marked with crosses in the center. The colorful construction-paper hearts were various sizes, ranging from a few inches to a full page. The children colored their index fingers with washable black marker and drew the cross in the middle of the heart, just like the cross that is drawn on each of us at the Ash Wednesday service. We put up the hearts all around the fellowship hall and on the tables before the meal. And we made extra hearts for each person who was in attendance.

The addition of the red, pink, and fuchsia hearts with the crosses in the middle made an immediate impact. The service followed the traditional, somber arc of liturgy and song, but the splash of colorful love all around the room offered a new memory. I still have youth who were children at that service who remember the hearts with the crosses. However you mark Ash Wednesday, be creative in the way that you welcome children into the rite.