I Would Love to Do That One More Time
I am very grateful to you today. Thank you for reading my heart. A special thank you goes to those of you who have been reading since that first post on April 29, 2013. I always like to celebrate on April 29.
I keep a list of blog post ideas on my computer. Ideas come to me at church. They come in conversations. They come when I see something by the side of the road when Ray and I are riding along together. I recently added this to my list:
One more time.
That idea came to me while we were still in Nashville after Ray received his encouraging news a couple of weeks ago. The next morning I was fixing some technical issues on posts dating back to 2013. I forwarded one of those early posts to John, saying: “I was reminded again what a huge blessing it has been to me that you suggested that I do the blog those many moons ago, John!”
My fourth post began with this sentence: “When Mother and I talk each night, she likes to hear about my day.”
How I would love to have one of those nightly conversations with Mother one more time.
The story in that post is very special to me, so I’d like to share the whole post with you now:
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Simple Pleasures
May 2, 2013
When Mother and I talk each night, she likes to hear about my day. Once I told her about the walk our daughter Mary Evelyn, granddaughter Clara, and I made to take pictures among the wildflowers.
I love it when something like this prompts a childhood memory and Mother tells me a story. She began, “I like wildflowers in the spring.” Then, she told me about Sunday afternoons when she was seven years old. When a near-neighbor’s granddaughter visited her grandparents, she and Mother would walk by the creek and see the wildflowers. I loved imagining my mother walking among the wildflowers back in 1939.
Simple pleasures were the only ones available to Mother. She was the richer for it. With all of our distractions and busyness, sometimes it’s hard to remember to share simple pleasures with our children. Today might be just the day to put down the books and electronics and take a walk to look at the wildflowers. Once I discovered forty different kinds on a walk not more than a mile long. Forty different kinds. God’s imagination is limitless. Looking at wildflowers is just one way to help our children get an idea of just how wonderful God is.
When I was a little girl, one of the simple pleasures I enjoyed was singing hymns at church. I loved when the male and female voices took turns in “Consider the Lilies,” set to four-part harmony by E. H. Packard. As you walk along and look at the wildflowers, remember to:
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin:
And yet I say unto you,
That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Matthew 6:28-29
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I mentioned recently that our family entertained each other with hilarious skits on Christmas Eve. Mother was hard of hearing for many years. Since our children only heard my side of those conversations as Mother and I talked on our house phone, they sometimes found those conversations pretty entertaining. One year our daughters performed a skit of one of Mother’s and my nightly conversations. It was so funny. I would love to hear them do that one more time.
I used to accompany Daddy to his doctor’s appointments. Sometimes we had lunch together in the VA lunch room afterwards or between appointments. I would love to have one of those lunches with Daddy one more time.
As I wrote about recently, I used to sing to our babies when I rocked them before naptime. I would love to do that one more time.
I could go on and on. The important thing is to do the important things today before they become memories that we wish we could do one more time.
Jesus the Son of God became flesh and dwelt among us.
Therefore, He had to be made
like His brethren in all things,
so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest
in things pertaining to God,
to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Hebrews 2:17
Even He had to wrestle with the reality of time while He was doing God’s work on the earth. He said:
We must work the works of Him who sent Me
as long as it is day;
night is coming when no one can work.
While I am in the world,
I am the Light of the world.”
John 9:4-5