{"id":14862,"date":"2016-03-19T04:21:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-19T09:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.wordpress.com\/?p=14862"},"modified":"2016-03-19T04:21:33","modified_gmt":"2016-03-19T09:21:33","slug":"beyond-the-memory-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/2016\/03\/19\/beyond-the-memory-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Memory Box"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 12 hours I went through my whole life&#8217;s memories.<\/p>\n<p>Jr. and Sr. High choral pieces. Grade school friend letters from California. College evidence, minus my diploma,\u00a0is all bagged up for the dump. It&#8217;s weird and hard to decide what of my past to save and what to lose in the dusty files of &#8220;past life&#8221; paper memory.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tried to keep a good showing of it: birthday cards, silly little letters to my sis, and I haven&#8217;t even dared to touch the picture tub yet. My heart can only take so much in one day, people, and you all know how much I love pictures.<\/p>\n<p>What do I want to show my kids when they get older of who I was and the building blocks of who I am today?<\/p>\n<p>And then I wonder will they ever see it?<\/p>\n<p>How long are You sending us, Lord?<\/p>\n<p>I know it&#8217;s not for us to know.<\/p>\n<p>You never told us how long we&#8217;d stay here.<\/p>\n<p>And ten years feels like a blink some days.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Later today is\u00a0our last\u00a0Upward Basketball Celebration. It&#8217;s (I struggle to find a word here) hard to say goodbye to a ministry God gave you the grace to help start. We have prayed so much over this ministry. The hours. The love. The delight in the precious little children&#8217;s faces. We&#8217;ve gotten the privilege to watch children grow up in the ministry. Kids like the one I just tried to represent as I packed her away into my memory box.<\/p>\n<p>Oh Lord, what a privilege to invest in another&#8217;s life. As I look back on the beautiful investments of my own I am left in awe at Your hand orchestrating the delicate flouring of my soul.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t deserve such care.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t deserve the opportunity to make such an investment in others.<\/p>\n<p>What a privilege.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So upward little loves, we will miss you. Wonderful coaches, snack shack helpers, greeters (I can still picture Ms. Becky&#8217;s radiant face as she stood at the door for years), referees, Moms and Dads and friends and family of the jubilant little people&#8230; we&#8217;ll miss you. Big. Time. And thank you for the privilege of loving you.<\/p>\n<p>And class back in California sending goodbye letters to a little 3rd grade girl moving to the cross-country\u00a0unknowns, family who sent endless cards, friends who loved selflessly from even across the country, church youth groups, praise teams, college campus ministry&#8230; I miss you. And thank you for the privilege of loving you.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>God has used you all to shape us into better followers of Him. We&#8217;re so much better because of you. Your investment is living on so much further than the memory box.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m so overwhelmed sometimes in this journey through my life. The good, the hard, the old and the new.<\/p>\n<p>And as we start a new chapter, slowly closing up parts of the last one over the next 126 days, I&#8217;m thankful that in looking at\u00a0how God used the past unknowns to\u00a0draw us to Himself, I can have full confidence of\u00a0His drawing in the future unknowns.<\/p>\n<p>My heart is full. Thank you, so many dear ones, for continuing this journey with us and choosing to\u00a0walk with us into memories\u00a0beyond the memory box.<\/p>\n<p>We don&#8217;t deserve your love.<\/p>\n<p>You bless us so.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>-Another step forward. To the ends of the earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 12 hours I went through my whole life&#8217;s memories. Jr. and Sr. High choral pieces. Grade school friend letters from California. College evidence, minus my diploma,\u00a0is all bagged up for the dump. It&#8217;s weird and hard to decide what of my past to save and what to lose in the dusty files of &#8220;past&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/2016\/03\/19\/beyond-the-memory-box\/#more-14862\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","clear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}