"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
(Matthew 6:21)
One of my treasures would definitely be my children's journals.
I read back through them and remember moments.
Beyond their sentence, I can remember details.
When I read about how we read Ramona the Pest and loved it, I remember how we laughed at how Ramona wrote her last name initial, Q, with cat ears and a tail.
When I read about R2-D2, I smile at how obsessed my boys are with Star Wars.
When I read about Isaiah cooking, I remember watching him in the kitchen with his apron on, and his delight and pride in whatever came out of the oven.
When I read about flowers in his journal, I can remember his attention to detail, his favorite flowers, the way that he comments on things like that.
And when Mia starts telling stories in hers and illustrates them, I remember cracking up over the funny names she comes up with.
When she wrote about she and I making chocolate cake, I remember having a just-newly-born baby who never wanted me to put her down, and frosting that cake in the kitchen one evening while Mr. C. and the older kids had gone to deliver a note.
These little details that make up our life here...
And today?
During our history lesson we were talking about Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress and how he became the writer of the Declaration of the Independence. This led into a discussion about John Adams. We talked about the Boston Massacre and John Adams' impartiality, integrity, and adherence to fair principles.
When I look at this page that Benji wrote this afternoon, I can remember how proud I've felt today of those that have gone before us.
I can feel gratitude in my heart for worthy examples, for clean, respectable living, and for ordinary people who did extraordinary things.
I can be inspired that if they could do hard things, so can I -- and maybe my meager life will matter to someone after me, someday.
And I felt grateful for what I learned from John Adams today, hundreds of years later. In order to truly understanding something, you have to be willing to look at both angles and hear the story and feelings from both sides of the fence.
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