Lives Lived
By Belinda
I spent yesterday emptying photo albums, breaking them down for recycling and storing the photos they had contained, in photo storage boxes, about the size of a shoe box, with smaller inner compartments. As I filled these, I added at the front, a small index card onto which I had written the main events covered by the photos in that compartment.
Since I record our lives not only in writing, but also with many photographs, this was quite a job and I managed only to do the years from 1999 to 2001 inclusive over many hours yesterday.
As I filed away the three years of photographs, I relived those years. There were the births of three granddaughters, a grandson and a God daughter; several weddings; many visits to us from friends and family in England; trips made by us to B.C.,England and Holland and a trip to Canada's far north by Paul and his uncle John. There was a lot of living in those three years!
It was hard to believe that the three chubby and dimpled baby girls appearing in so many of the photos, are our three beautiful and rapidly growing up teen aged granddaughters, whose personalities and gifts are evolving so distinctly, but then there have been 14 years of life since the start of 1999.
In the years since then there have been broken hearts and relationships as well as pain survived and relationships healed and strengthened within our circle of friends and family. Some of the dear faces in the photographs are no longer with us, but it was good to see them again as they were then: still active; playing games of Scrabble; exploring the world; living life; being family. Lives lived, not perfectly, but well...
I spent yesterday emptying photo albums, breaking them down for recycling and storing the photos they had contained, in photo storage boxes, about the size of a shoe box, with smaller inner compartments. As I filled these, I added at the front, a small index card onto which I had written the main events covered by the photos in that compartment.
Since I record our lives not only in writing, but also with many photographs, this was quite a job and I managed only to do the years from 1999 to 2001 inclusive over many hours yesterday.
As I filed away the three years of photographs, I relived those years. There were the births of three granddaughters, a grandson and a God daughter; several weddings; many visits to us from friends and family in England; trips made by us to B.C.,England and Holland and a trip to Canada's far north by Paul and his uncle John. There was a lot of living in those three years!
It was hard to believe that the three chubby and dimpled baby girls appearing in so many of the photos, are our three beautiful and rapidly growing up teen aged granddaughters, whose personalities and gifts are evolving so distinctly, but then there have been 14 years of life since the start of 1999.
In the years since then there have been broken hearts and relationships as well as pain survived and relationships healed and strengthened within our circle of friends and family. Some of the dear faces in the photographs are no longer with us, but it was good to see them again as they were then: still active; playing games of Scrabble; exploring the world; living life; being family. Lives lived, not perfectly, but well...
Psalm 103:15-18
Amplified Bible (AMP)
15 As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16 For the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place shall know it no more.
17 But the mercy and loving-kindness of the Lord are from everlasting to everlasting upon those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him, and His righteousness is to children’s children—
18 To such as keep His covenant [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it] and to those who [earnestly] remember His commandments to do them [imprinting them on their hearts].
1 Peter 4:8-10
Amplified Bible (AMP)
8 Above all things have intense and unfailing love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins [forgives and[a]disregards the offenses of others].
9 Practice hospitality to one another (those of the household of faith). [Be hospitable, be a lover of strangers, with brotherly affection for the unknown guests, the foreigners, the poor, and all others who come your way who are of Christ’s body.] And [in each instance] do it ungrudgingly (cordially and graciously, without complaining but as representing Him).
10 As each of you has received a gift (a particular spiritual talent, a gracious divine endowment), employ it for one another as [befits] good trustees of God’s many-sided grace [faithful stewards of the [b]extremely diverse powers and gifts granted to Christians by unmerited favor].
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