Morning Thoughts

It's early, barely after 6am and I've just finished feeding the boys. Jer made coffee and the sound and smell of it brewing is filling the kitchen and living room. Another familiar sound. The dryer humming. For a moment I rewind 15-20 years and I'm reminded of when I was a kid. All those mornings getting up for school, soccer, and swimming lessons, there were always the familiar sounds and smells of coffee brewing, the dryer running, and even the morning news. I can almost see my mom standing in the kitchen filling the coffee pot or my dad sitting on the couch drinking coffee and reading the paper. It was such a warm and secure feeling to wake up to those same things every morning. I knew that when I got up and heard and saw those things, everything was just as it should.

Fast forward to my living room and now my boys are waking up to the same things.

It's amazing how when your kids are born so is the overwhelming desire to give them all of the things that you were given and more. You want them to have the same good experiences and to share the same fond memories that you had as a kid. So as I sit typing, I am also wondering how Ben and Abe will remember our mornings together. What will be the things that remind them of mom and dad, that remind them of home?

And then the thought came to me...they will remember our mornings however we instill them. I think of my parents when I smell coffee brewing in the morning only because that's what my parents did in the morning, every morning. I hear the news or a newspaper crinkling and I think of my dad, only because that's what he watched or read. So, when I want to know how the boys will remember us, I simply need to ask myself, "How do you want them to?"

I want them to remember us as parents who loved God and who tried to teach them to love God too. Who read the Word, studied it, commited it to our hearts and obeyed it. Who desired to do what was right in His eyes and who lived in a manner that brought Him glory, honor and praise in EVERYTHING we did, even the brewing of our coffee in the morning.

I trust they will have fond memories of their mom's pancakes on Saturday mornings, or watching cartoons in their jammies with daddy, but even more so I hope that in every circumstance they remember that we tried to teach them about God and His love and sacrafice for us. Further, I pray that their security does not from the familiar smells and sounds of home, but rather from the eternal hope that He, and He alone, brings.

No small undertaking for sure, but thank you Lord that your mercy and grace is sufficient.