It’s What You See

There are ten of us in our family, my husband and I and eight children.  Most of the kids are grown now and when we get together the kids tend to reminisce about their growing up years.  As I listen to them, I notice a lot of diversity in the accounts of the same events.  The memory banks of some have stored away good and happy recollections of the event, while others tend to file things away in negative colors.  Neither is probably entirely accurate to the reality, but what we remember becomes to us the truth.  The memory of the event becomes more “real” than the event itself.

That got me to thinking about how I want to record life in my own memory files. Some things are undeniably bad, and cannot and should not be seen as anything else.  Other things are unquestionably good.  But what about all those in between things, or those everyday sort of tossed salad events that have both savory and unsavory ingredients?  What lens do I want to look through as I record my life?  Easy peasy decision – I want to store up joyful memories in larger quantities than unhappiness.  I will choose to SEE what is true, but also good, lovely, noble, trustworthy, excellent and worthy of a fond recounting when we are dishing up memories at our next family gathering.