Treasures Of The Heart...



Today as I carefully packed this fifty-year-old Christmas card away with all the other decorations, I smiled, and was reminded of how our personalities are shaped in so many ways and by so many things as we grow. On the inside, it says, "Merry Christmas to Mother and Daddy Love, Kathy."

I don't remember making it, but what I do remember is having a coloring book at my grandmother's house when I was about six. I remember asking my uncle if he wanted to color a picture in my book. I watched him as he outlined and colored each item on the page. I clearly remember thinking how beautiful his picture was and how I needed to outline if I wanted mine to be beautiful. To this day I outline every picture I color. I think that simple experience may have shaped me, may have caused me to be more careful, more meticulous, wanting my efforts to be just right, or maybe it had nothing to do with anything at all.

I found the card while cleaning out my parents home after both of them had passed away. It reminded me of how, we as mother's save so many little things our kids make for us. We save ornaments that we hang on the tree year after year, construction paper paintings, letters they've written to us... We save these things never knowing what will become of them when we're gone.

A lot of things have to be thrown out. You can't keep it all, but every now and then something comes along in the form of a treasure. You know it's a treasure because it speaks to your heart. This is one of those treasures. The heart kind. The kind that reminds us to remember.

It reminds me of that little seven-year-old girl who must have been outlining and trying to make her picture as beautiful as she could. It reminds me of time spent at my grandmother's house and of the mother who lovingly put it away, only to have it resurface 50 years later. I'm glad she did. I framed it and hung it behind the Christmas tree.

Today I carefully packed this fifty-year-old Christmas card away with all the other decorations. I wrapped it in cotton batting, the kind that sparkles with glitter, and when it resurfaces again next year I'll smile, and I'll be reminded, and I'll remember.

I hope your January has started out to be the beginning of a great new year.



Happy New Year...

 

Cleaning and cooking for two days produced a wonderful New Year's Eve party with family and friends. Lots of food, music and Texas 42. The last of the partiers left at 2:20am. and made it home safely.

Happy New Year!!!!

 

 

New Year, New Slate...

Today starts a new year and, as I am a person of lists, I have been working on my resolutions. It's not that I always keep them, but it never hurts to "regroup", have goals to think about, take a minute to look back over the past year, and decide what was worth doing and what wasn't.

For instance, I've been trying to learn to play the mandolin, without practicing, wonder how that's going to work out. Yeah, maybe I better add that to my resolutions list.

And how about the one every body has on their list-diet and exercise.

My list goes on and on. I think I'm going to add: 

Resolve to stick to my resolutions.

Here's the best part of 2012 for us.

Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!!!

 

Yesterday 2012...

Here it is the last day of 2012. Looking back I would say it's been a good year.

Since I am a huge fan of Oswald Chambers' daily devotional here is today's entry from "My Utmost For His Highest":

  

Devotion For December 31st
 

YESTERDAY
 

"The God of Israel will be your reward."

Isaiah 52:12
 

Security from Yesterday. "God requireth that which is past." At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

Security for To-morrow. "For the Lord will go before you." This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our rereward. God's hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.

Security for To-day. "For ye shall not go out with haste." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.

 

WISHING YOU AND YOURS A WONDERFUL AND BLESSED 2013.

Happy New Year's Eve...

 

 

 Happy New Year's Eve!!!

 

Happy New Year...

Happy New Year from my house to yours!!!