On the very top shelf

I have been on this crazy urgency to organize my house, my work, my desk, my life. I am quite certain that I am self-diagnosed ADD but that is another post for another day.  I know my patient and loving husband wishes I could finish a project, just one project, before I start another one. When that day comes it will be a miracle. He will be shocked.

In reality though, that hasn’t quite happened. Between the kids calling momma every three seconds and my mind just wondering at anything and everything I see, I have yet come close to this organizational thing. Hence the Urgency….

Tonight while trying to clean up the kiddos rooms, and putting away barbies and babies. again. Each child is unique in their own ways. I embrace their differences, encourage their little souls, and forgive those little sinners. I was in my daughter’s room picking up and made my way to the closet. Something made me look up to the shelf. I saw my grandmother’s old jewelry box and it brought back memories of trying on all her necklaces and bracelets when I was little. There’s other things in the closet too. Memories. Cards. Clothes that were never worn except one outfit. Gifts. Things that I sometimes get down when I am longing to connect our first child.

I had to climb up the furniture, to look through the empty jewelry box, and take a peak at other other things. I found a bag. A bag that I did not recognize or remember putting up there. I opened the bag and as I saw what it was my heart was overjoyed with joy and sadness at the same time. It was white wooden letters that you would use to hang on the wall. We had bought the letters.

PAYTON

They were for her nursery to hang above her crib. Her special room. We still live in our same house and her room has now been our son’s room and then our second daughter’s room. Although years ago when it was fresh it did bother me a little. I felt I was taking some thing away from her. Seven years later finding these on the very top shelf I was reminded how precious and short life is. How we struggle each day with our getting by’s, motherhood, being a wife, careers, friendships, just everything. We don’t know our full story.

Finding these letters today reminded me of the careful details I put in to naming our precious daughter. Decorating her nursery and planning for her arrival. All the little details. In the end I didn’t know the full story. I wont until I am in Heaven with her rejoicing. It reminds me of the delicate and tedious ways the Lord puts himself in the details. Each and every way even to the top shelf. A reminder of his unfailing love, his comfort, his healing, and everlasting life.

The reminders of my daughter all around me. I am reminded through from the faux plant from her funeral, the calla lily that was given to us that has bloomed one flower every year except this year, the laughter in my home, my children who remind me that I am a mother of three, and even the things on the very top shelf. I am reminded and she is not forgotten.

Her soul waits for me in a place that I can only imagine the goodness.. A place of rejoicing, no more tears, no more suffering, and no more death.

Until then I will live life to the fullest, shine for Jesus, embrace the days ahead of me, comfort others, pray like crazy, love everyone, and, put the things back on the very top shelf.

Because they are so precious to me just like she was to Jesus.

Love,