Messy Fingerprints

The more kids I have the more passionate I become about capturing them & making time stand still for a brief second. Time is fleeting and so I want to hold on to these sweet, precious gifts. I want to remember. Remember where we've been so I know where we are going (or not going).  Crazy?! Maybe. But it is what we have in this life - Memories & fingerprints. And sometimes those fingerprints are messy, sticky and gross. Sometimes they are sweet and perfect. At times they are so obvious they are caked like mud and others so faint you can hardly see.  But I want to remember each one - after all this is our story, our gift.

For some reason, when I look at these paper memories I see so much more than just that paper - I see our life as it has and is unfolding. I see it changing, me changing not what I see, but how I see.  Since I have changed that one thing, it is literally changed everything, everything.

It is  so easy for me to see the daily messes as frustrations, the hourly disputes as interruptions. I think I have to raise my voice to be heard louder and louder only to realize they hear very little then but everything when words are soft. All those loud words result in is tears from me, from them...But then, then I hear that "still small voice" (1Kings 19:12), "a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." (Prov. 15:1) I know this, I know this, I know I know this - but oh how I forgot this precious truth. I want them to know how to hear His voice and listen to His voice and obey His voice so they don't have to learn the hard way like me.

(My grandma & prayer warrior - oh how she has prayed over her family for SO many years)

It starts with us.
This is why  I am passionate about these paper memories - so I remember TRUTH revealed. So I can keep changing how I see and pray what I do see doesn't slip through my hands without me noticing, fully.
And maybe someday, I will be like Grandma - a prayer warrior, woman of FAITH - trusting God knows so much better than I and He takes care of all those tiny "lilies" and "birds" in my life (Matthew 6:25-24).