I opened the box and it hit me immediately...and I knew. And part of me thought, "just put the lid back on and walk away...you're not ready." But the other part of me wanted to see...what was this that was all packed away?
I was going thru some boxes in our garage. We've been in this house 7 1/2 months, and the boxes are still everywhere. Ugh. Still can't get any of the cars in there. I know that if I would just tackle a box a day...I'd be done by now, but other things get in the way each day...life...and so here we are.
So, the familiar scent hit me the second I opened the box. I knew it had to contain items from my Mom or my Grandmother. I wasn't sure which one at first. The things that we packed up of my Mom's have a certain smell...a mixture of her perfume, make-up, hair-spray, powder...I don't know. Her house smelled like her, and I guess when we boxed up her things, we boxed up the smell as well. Same thing with my Grandma. I have some of her furniture, and even now, I can open up a drawer and instantly feel her presence...because it smells like I remember her.
Weird, I know.
Or maybe you can relate.
This particular box contained items from my Grandmother's house...several photo albums...wedding pictures of my parents, and some of my Mom growing up. There was an album of when my Grandma Ellen and her sister, Janie, went on a trip to see family. They had to be in their 80's if they were a day...and they were acting goofy and posing in funny ways for the pictures. Maybe that's where I get my sense of humor!
And there were some pictures that my siblings and I had sent her over the years...of our kids and our lives. Grandma lived halfway across the country from us, and person-to-person visits were few-and-far-between. She had put the pictures in an album. I imagine she looked at it often. I wondered about the last time she touched those pages. The last picture in it was of Clark at 8 weeks old. That would've been in 1996. My Mom died in 1998, and I doubt that my Grandmother looked at old pictures from that point until her death in 2004. It would've been to painful for her.
I flipped through the pages and breathed it all in. My throat tightened up and I felt tears coming to my eyes. I had to close the box. I wasn't ready. As much as I loved seeing all the pictures, I am still not ready to process all of the emotion from my Mom's death...and seeing photos of her as a child, teenager, young wife...it's still too much.
I just really miss her. We didn't have the relationship that my daughter, Holly, and I have...but, for what it was, it was good and I loved her very much. And I miss her when I look at the pictures from the past...but mostly I miss her being here with me and my kids. And I already miss future things that she won't be around for...milestones and special events. She's already missed the birth of some of her grandchildren, and she's missed two weddings so far...and there will be another one she'll miss this summer (well, I guess SHE'S not really missing it...we're missing HER at these events). I miss not having her in the present...and I miss not having her for the future. But, because of Christ, I know I will see her again one day!
I am so thankful for the legacy of my great-grandparents...who took their 5 children to church, and taught them about the Lord...so that my Grandmother would come to know Christ at an early age...so that when she had kids of her own, she would teach them about God and take them to church...and because of that, her daughter, my Mother, would come to know Christ at an early age. And when my Mom married, her life would greatly influence her husband's life, and he, my Dad, would give his heart to the Lord, and would be a faithful servant for going on 50 years. My parents raised 4 children in a Christian home. Now the 4 of us have children of our own, and we do the best we can to seek God in all things. Like our parents, and the ones who came before us, we are not perfect...we mess up and get off track...but, by God's grace, we can start again. We have that chance because somebody way back when told my great-grandparents about Jesus...and they were faithful to carry the torch...and pass it down to the next generation.
Who told you?
I cannot imagine my life without Christ...I truly can't. I can't imagine not having a relationship with the Lord to lift me up and walk with me in times of struggle. And even the happy times, as good as they are, they remind me that this world is not my home...and that even BETTER awaits me one day in Heaven. For me to have strength in the hard times and confidence in the future, I had to come to the place where I would meet Jesus. And that started because someone told me about Him.
Who told you?
When I can go through the box again, I want to take out several pictures and have them framed. My Mom's legacy...and that of my Grandmother's...is not in pictures, but in the lives they lived during their time on earth. And even tho they are gone from this life, their influence remains in the lives they helped reach for God...and it will hopefully be felt for generations to come.
Maybe you don't have this kind of legacy...and that's okay. You can be the first! It's gotta start somewhere, right?
"Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God's throne. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, so that you won't grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:1-3)
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