This morning I was just going through my files, sorting through medical records, articles from magazines, love notes from my kids, birthday cards, catalogues and endless piles of scribbled notes.
Before I carried a journal EVERYWHERE I go, and I mean, EVERYWHERE, I filled manilla file folders with thoughts scribbled on napkins, scraps of paper, and paper ripped out of wire-bound notebooks. Now, I scribble the things I want to remember, adorable things my kids say and writing ideas in a heart-embossed journal that is always in my black vinyl ten-pounds-too-heavy purse.
I still don’t know how organized the journals will be, or how I will be able to find anything I scribbled between the red covers, but at least it’s a change in how I unorganize my life.
Today, I found a piece of paper I forgot I had. It instantly took me back years.
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When we were still newlyweds and pregnant with our first child, we longed to have somewhere to spend Christmas vacation. A family we loved and admired, Connie and Al and their six kids, allowed us to join them in their family festivities. It was in their home I felt the first flutterings in my womb of our first child. After putting their kids to bed each night, we spent hours talking and asking questions about parenting.
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Through the years we continued to spend time together, joining them for holidays and camping trips with our child, and then another, and another, until our family matched theirs in size. The years they invested in us, sharing and instructing about parenting has been a huge blessing.
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I am so regretful that this in one of the only bits of Connie’s wisdom that I journaled.
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The context is, of course, our children, and the challenge of parenting when you are frustrated, struggling, angry, overwhelmed or just plain tired.
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The translation is as follows:
“Look into their eyes
and see a soul
that needs to be ministered to
in the love of God –
they are yours
to raise for the Lord.”
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It shares the HOW and WHY and WHAT of parenting. What a blessing to find this scrap of paper in that messy manilla file.
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I might have to write this in my journal.
Oh, I love Connie and Al! They are so sweet. We did not spend oodles of time with them like you did! I love how you take notes like everywhere..! Aren't you glad you have blogging now? It's so fun connecting with you in these little bits and bites through blogs..
Needed this today and the last week or so, as I've been discuraged and overwhelmed by all that is and is to come. Keep scribbling Mindy. Your "scribbles" are etched art on the walls of our hearts.
Thank you so much for this. For some reason it made me cry. I love my children so much that I love looking into their eyes and I often wonder what is going on behind. I pray that I remember this every day.I love you, Aunt Mindy, and thanks for sharing this.May God bless you richly!!
You did write down her wisdom. You wrote it on the hearts of your children as you raised (or are raising) them.I loved your noun-deficiency post and I am going to borrow that name, lol. I have it! I call everything a "thingy." Once I said "Can you get the thingy in the thingy!"Women seem to have no problem understanding what I want, but my hubby, not so much.Recently, I asked my hair stylist (and friend) "Did you do that thingy that you do?" and she totally got it and said "Yes" and my hubby insists he's going to use it in a sermon someday, lol!Oh, and we live in WA and homeschool too!
Thanks for that bit of encouragement today! I'm going to try and think that as I look into their eyes today!