why it is really good to remember

I was five when I started my first journal. It was from the Hello Kitty store in the Florida Mall, had 4 different colors of paper, a little lock on the front and I can still remember how it smelled when it was brand new. Even at five I refused to call it a diary. It was a journal. Big difference. A diary is for the recording of silly girl thoughts. A journal was where you worked out the hard questions of life, a place to write about really important things, which at five was often what we had for dinner.

Christmas 1987 I received my first camera. I was seven. It was purple. The pictures I took with it at Lisa Michele's 8th birthday party are in our basement now. Glad to say both my camera and my skills have been upgraded since then.

I think I was born a historian at heart. All those dead people and their dates appealed to me. Captivated me. Human beings, image bearers of the Holy God himself, walking this earth, living out each day of their lives, one hour, one minute at a time, for the past 6000 years. It doesn't matter how brilliant or brave or base you may be, you only live one moment at a time. You only get 24 hours in each day, just like everyone else.

I am thankful I learned history from a theocentric perspective. We studied about the Providential hand of God, shaping men and nations for His purposes. We looked for evidences of Him, sovereignly moving throughout the centuries as He scripted His story. We studied history because, regardless of the century, men are men and are predisposed to the same vices and sins and we can learn from those who have gone before. And we study history to remember. How God has cared for and provided for his people, all 6000 or so years they've inhabited this earth.

It is good to remember. And because I am not all that great at remembering on my own, I journal and collect pictures of my days and put them in books and label them after the years of my life.

They remind me of the faithful God who calls me His daughter. They remind me that my life is not about me. They remind me that I am loved enough by my Father in heaven that he is not content to leave me where I am, but is committed to growing me. They remind me that the painful days where I don't feel very hopeful do have purpose. Growth requires death. And death is not the end.

New life comes from death.

 I have been collecting pictures these last few weeks, wading through thousands of pictures of our year past, trying to whittle them down to fit in a book to sit on our table and remind us of how God was faithful to our family in 2011.

I have really enjoyed the process. It felt completely surreal to go back through the pictures of Bereket and Tamagn that we received via email from February till September, when we brought them home. I remember what it was like to sit and stare at their sad little faces on our glowing computer screen and wonder who are you??? You are going to be my child and what are you really like? Will you fit in our family? Can I love you? Do you even want to love us?

And now they're my kids. I do love them. They do fit in our family. We are glad they are ours. And my heart softens again to the little boy whining at my knees that he doesn't want milk but juice.

Remembering is a really good thing. Please, please remind me when I forget?