‘You can never tell what’s inside a person’s private heart and soul, but you can tell a lot about a person by what they hold onto over the years.’ This quote comes from a movie ‘Thicker than Water,’ starring Melissa Gilbert. After her father’s death, she is handed a box by the housekeeper Abigail who has been with the family for many years. Inside the box she finds those things sends her looking for secrets from her father’s life. In the process she learns a lot about her family and herself.
Melissa Gilbert has been a favorite actress of mine since she played Laura in the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ series, which was a family ‘must watch’ in our household. I watched the movie solely because Melissa Gilbert was in it. As the movie unfolded my mind kept coming back to that comment. It started me thinking about what a person would learn about my life from the thongs I have kept over the years.
Having moved house only recently, I had a good chance to go through those keepsakes and decide which things could be thrown out and which could not. My collection of keepsakes includes wedding cards, baby cards, school reports and certificates for my son and daughter, paintings, cards and handmade gifts made my two now adult offspring, mostly while children.
There are letters in abundance from my husband, or fiancé as he was then, to me and vice versa, anniversary, birthday and valentine’s day cards, programs from live theater shows my husband and I have seen over the years, my parents’ wedding certificate and then death certificates and my mother’s wedding ring.
It included a copy of a newspaper article from when my first book, ‘Chasing After the Wind,’ was launched, a copy of the check for the first poem I ever sold along with a copy of a poem I wrote about my mother and the card that resulted, printed by Blue Mountain Arts.
Tucked away amongst all this paraphernalia chronicling my life, I found a devotional book and New Testament given me by Mrs. Endicott, my Scripture teacher at school when I was 12 year old. This dear elderly woman encouraged me greatly after I committed my life to Christ.
A copy of the service from a dear friend’s funeral showing her smiling face sat close to the top of the box of keepsakes along newspaper announcements and name tags etc from our son and daughter’s weddings.
And what did I decide could be thrown out? None of the above. When it came time to move they all got packed up and moved with us. I simply could not bear to throw away any of them. It would have felt like throwing away part of my life.
What things do you hold onto? What do they tell about your life and about what is important to you?
Please visist these related blogs
How can you know God’s will for your life?