Remembrance. Reflection. Pictures. Movies. Journals. Just a few of the things that I love…I love to write and reflect. I don’t want to forget…that event, that feeling, that answered prayer, that expectation, that victory….that trial…that mountain..that valley. To remember means it happened, to remember means I lived it and in some cases..lived through it.

To remember gives life meaning..it means it matters…all of it.

From our first cry to our first step, jumping rope for the first time, not getting picked for dodgeball, riding that bike, tying your shoe, that skinned knee…or broken heart, passing that test…and failing others, making that friend…losing that friend, taking the big breath before entering a room full of people, standing on the edge of the unknown, climbing that mountain…making it over that mountain…., forgiving that person…forgiving yourself, walking with certainty and yet at other times crossing your fingers that the waters will in fact part…answered prayers and victories yet to be seen….it. all. matters.

So I write it down. I write it down not only to remember, not only because it’s my journey but because more often than not..it’s my lesson. I don’t learn the easy way..I’m stubborn, it takes me a lot of skinned knees to learn a lesson. We see and understand life better in reverse.. If in remembrance we can glean something, understand something, change something, heal something, heal someone..well.. we can’t help but bring others along with us. When we give a voice to the things that we feel or experience..the things that confuse us, captivate us, keep us tangled.. the things that tear us apart…and then point to the one who puts us back together…then nothing is wasted. Its worth remembering.

Gods word in part is the place where history intersects with the core of the same things you and I have and will walk through…I might not be thrown into a den of lions like Daniel….but boy have I felt like it. I may not have watched the Red Sea part before my eyes but I have seen Gods hand move and part immovable waters that walked me out of my own Egypt into freedom, I haven’t wept in a cave like David but alone and desparate for God..I have been there…. and Hannah, Sarah, Elizabeth…well I feel as though I know them better than anyone because they did in fact touch the same want, the same desire, the same longing and the same hope..that I too felt with the same intensity.

I know them…thousands of years stand between us but humanity is the same.

And how thankful I am that The Lord in His infinite and beautiful wisdom and love knew that the recording of the remembrance of humanity from a world away could and would in fact inspire hope in the hearts of the broken and breath in the souls of the weary of today – Today.

One life…God sees it all, uses it all…every part – if we let Him. Every detail is precious because you are His. Every victory, every tear.

I love to hear my kids recount their day to me, how was it? Tell me the good. Tell me the bad. What did you learn? From getting an answer right in math to earning a lollipop for good behavior to frantically looking for a lost Buzz Lightyear…it all matters to me. It matters to me because I love them. It matters to me because it matters to them. It matters.

It all matters. Every part.

Your every step through this world matter because you are a child of the King. Like a beautiful tapestry He weaves His story through the good, the bad…and the ugly parts of our lives.

Through our remembrance of where we have been we see the God who has held us and pursued us through every part.

So what about you. Are you remembering where he has taken you…Write it down.

Remember where you have been that you may see where He longs to take you…closer to Him.