I just watched 50 First Dates on the airplane today and was inspired! I know it came out awhile ago (2004), but I’m not always the most current on new movies, and I sure did appreciate the airplane edited version.
If you haven’t seen it, the basic concept is that this girl Lucy (played by Drew Barrymore) was in a car accident and lost her ability to turn short term memory into long term, so each day was a completely new day, but she only remembered her life before the accident. So this guy Henry (Adam Sandler) wins the affections of Lucy everyday over and over again. There are a few fun plot twists and a great ending, but what struck me is how much we can take each other for granted. We often think of family as people who will always be there, but that is not necessarily true. Each day, each experience we have with those we love should be cherished like it was the first time or the last time. It stands to reason that if I love my wife in this way, we will never drift apart; if I relate to my children like this, they would always be confident that their dad wants to know their heart and help guide them through life.
These thoughts all come together as today we join with family to be together and grieve over the loss of and celebrate the life lived by my Granny Early. We don’t ever know when our last time to see and experience life with our loved ones will be. There are no guarantees, and the only surety that we have is right now and our eternity after this life in the body. Paul said, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” each moment for us on this earth is not only a moment to invest in those around us, but also a moment to live life IN CHRIST to the fullest. So Wednesday, our family suffered a great loss, but my Granny Early experienced the greatest gain anyone could hope to experience…that through faith she entered into the eternal presence of her Creator and Savior Jesus Christ.
So live today as it is your first and last day with those around you, cherishing great relationships and family history, but taking nothing for granted.

(ps. remember that this is not a movie endorsement, and I watched an edited for airplane version, so I don’t know what I “missed”.)

Today I find myself running around doing all those last minute things so that I can go out of town.
My to do list included:
1. Early morning run to keep the half marathon training going.
2. Finish the laundry.
3. Put chocolate and M&M on Isabelle’s heart cookies for her class.
4. Go get my fingerprints taken (so I can go on a field trip with the public school). Should have been done weeks ago and really can not wait till I get back!
5. Run by the grocery store to stock the house with food so they will survive while I am gone and Brian does not have to take them to the store.
6. Drop off criminal background check at the distract office (again so I can go on the field trip).
7. Pack
8. Make another two dozen heart shaped cookies, then put on the chocolate and M&Ms for Addie and Emma’s classes.
9. Arrange childcare needs for Brian.
10. Get in the car and pull away super excited!!

I have not accomplished #8 yet, and it might not happen. I bought three bags of Valentine’s candy as a back up

I was completely blessed by a stranger today in the grocery store! She was an older woman in the check out line before me, her name is Mrs. Stoner. Owen was in a bad mood at that point and I was trying to distract him by showing him all this cool Thomas the Tank Engine stuff by the checkout line. When I turned back to the line Mrs. Stoner had put almost all of my groceries on the belt for me! Then to top it off she bought Owen a Thomas book!! What a blessing for sure!!

As a Mom it takes a lot to get ready to leave your precious family, but time away is always worth it. I am headed to Sandy Cove’s Pastor’s Wives and Women in Ministry Connection, a retreat I have done yearly for 4-5 years. I am always blessed to be there. Spending time being taught from God’s Word and rubbing shoulders with other women in ministry is always great! I look forward to returning home refreshed and renewed and ready for my crazy to do list filled with baking needs, food gathering, high tech finger print analysis, and who knows what else!

“You must know… surely, you must know it was all for you. You are too generous to trifle with me. I believe you spoke with my aunt last night, and it has taught me to hope as I’d scarcely allowed myself before. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.” Mr. Darcy Pride and Prejudice
.

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” Honore’de Balzac
.

“For God so loved the World that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan.” Captain Wentworth to Anne Elliot Persuasion
.

“Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

.

“But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.” Psalm 13:5

“If I could but know his heart everything would become easy” Sense and Sensibility
.

“The Mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom” Henry Ward Beecher
.

“he brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” Song of Solomon 2:4

“In vain I have struggled. It will not do! My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you… Almost from the earliest moments of your acquaintance, I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard, which despite my struggles, has overcome every rational objection. And I beg you, most fervently, to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife.” Mr Darcy Pride and Prejudice
.

“My Mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.” Mark Twain

.

“Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.” Psalm 36:5

“I cannot make speeches, Emma; If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear notheing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.” Mr. Knightley in Emma

.

“Mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” Emily Dickinson

.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”" Romans 8:35, 37

“I am happier than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh” Elizabeth Pride and Prejudice

.

“A Mother who is really a Mother is never free.” Honore de Balzac

.

“For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.” Psalm 86:5