there is...

... a quote, framed, that has been hanging on the wall in my kitchen for years. Even though my adult children would not be able to tell it verbatim, they would recognize it when spotted in a different venue, and immediately realize they have been looking at it their entire lives. It is thought-y, and worth consideration:

"Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see." I can tell you the source, but not many details: Corrie ten Boom, who was a well known writer in Christian circles. Her family, living in Amsterdam, sheltered a number of Jews during WWII, causing her to be sent to a concentration camp. She died in California in 1983, a very prolific author.

I've been thinking about writing, and just realized that I have been doing it all my life. When I was in high school, I choose an English that would probably considered college prep now, but taken and survived long before anyone thought to call the class "AP". I signed up for the class as much for the teacher as the subject: she was a beloved institution in that small community. In her class, students were required to write at least one page to turn in every day. Any subject - but a paper every day, five each week.

Off to college with my AP English, as well as being chronically, hopelessly math impaired. Failing every math course I took for many years, including one that was supposed to be so easy it was non-credit, but required for people who did not have enough math credits to gain full admission: that's me! I think it took at least six courses to finally pass one in order to graduate.

I had a college professor who made us write every week, turn in a paper of various forms/formats, learning structure, how to build a coherent paragraph and assemble a readable narrative. I admit that the work was enjoyable, surprisingly easy, not seriously challenging, possibly from all the basics drilled into my head in that year of the AP classes. I am still composing, stringing words together, pondering life in print, occasionally searching the thesaurus for synonyms to be concise.

Then I left south Georgia, but wrote letters and card to my grandmother every day for years. Years of purchasing note paper, envelopes and postage stamps. Years of telling about mundane activities as well as milestones in the life of a family with little people who were (and still are) highly entertaining.  Years of letters delivered to her front door, read, and bundled together to be found on the shelf in her closet when the family gathered to make decisions about a lifetime of accumulated personal belongings.

Books and books of journals, pages filled with musings during the years I spent time with my mother as she declined. Frustrated, sad, confused, doubtful, lonely being miles away from daughters/family in an effort to be the glue that held my parents together as they aged and struggled with health issues. I bought those one-hundred page composition books and filled them with thoughts that could not be verbalized, hungry for a way to express all the emotions that simmered below the surface of being a capable devoted caregiver. I occasionally look up on the shelf in the closet and think: 'I should get those books down and take a look..' But No, Not Now.

And here we are: writing and reading. That quote up at the beginning covers a lot of territory. Funny- but-not in an ironic sort of way, that we cannot see into the future. Probably a blessing that we do not know how things we do or don't are going to have an impact on our lives for years to come. I often think we should all come equipped with a Magic Eight Ball as the most intelligent way to make decisions....