Today, I caught myself reaching into the back of my mind for the moments
in time when I was still a little girl.
...I remember my mother dressed in beautiful evening gowns and her hair all done-up and her usually not painted nails, a beautiful shade of red...
...then from the other corner of my mind, I can see her at home - with me on the couch sick and her in the kitchen making me fruit jello in my favorite flavor grape.
...My father was an Army man and my favorite memory of him was of just the two of us, out late one night - on the banks of a favorite pond, fishing into the wee hours of the morning with our radio off in the distance gently playing music that seemed to waft across the water in stereo-phonic sound...
...My sister sitting up with me on a Christmas night playing our new Monopoly game until very late and we were both carried off to bed by our Daddy...
(I only pretended to be asleep most times, so he would have to carry me...)
...Thanksgiving dinners when Laura and I would be the "choppers" for my mom...
...Christmas music by Buck Owens on the stereo while my sister and I entertained our parents with our theatrics to the words of all the different songs...
...of my mom's creative picnics in the rain...
And no matter where I am in my walk, I now know this - when I look back at those indelible moments,
I am with my family again...
and I am very grateful to a most incredible Heavenly Father for choosing
those exact people to exist with me all the days of my life...
God was there then and is here now--
the ultimate caretaker of me, my heart and my soul...and now my memories.
And for all those things ...
I am so thankful.
