Thankful for a Life (7in7: Day 2)

I feel at a loss for words today. Emotions come in waves. I hug my husband a little tighter and he pauses to say goodbye to our daughter. We didn't know him as well as others but we were still deeply touched by his life. And his death brings on so many feelings. We mourn this loss and ache for his family and those that were close like family. We do ministry and live life with these people and they are hurting.  But we also rejoice, along with them.  We rejoice because he is home. And we give thanks for a legacy that was greater than I think anyone realized. 

Trying to put "pen to paper" this morning was hard. All the ideas I have had seem unimportant after a day like yesterday. As I sat at the coffee table thinking my daughter came and picked up the book that we keep there and asked me to read. 

I sat back with her and started to read. But instead decided to pull up his sermon. And we listened to him while we flipped through the pages. 

This will be the third year we celebrate Christmas with the tradition of reading The History of Redemption. We eat breakfast together and before we open a single present we use this book to usher us into worship of all that this holiday means. And we find hope there. I remember reading it on the Christmas after Sandy Hook and when there were still so many questions and so much grief, we were reminded of the incredible hope that we find in Jesus. 

We have been working on the habit of memorizing scripture with our daughter. She has memorized songs so easily and parts of her books that it just seems silly not to work with her on this. And, in reality, it has been good for Matthew and I too cause even some of these basic verses aren't committed to memory. 

I was touched and challenged by the words written in his introduction to The History of Redemption. 

"Scripture memory is a waning discipline in the Western church, and it is my desire that you too feel compelled to commit this epic story to memory or at least begin making scripture memorization a part of your daily routine."

This placed it on our hearts to memorize this book and commit this story of redemption to memory. Our hope is that this will honor his life and death. And we would encourage and invite anyone else to join us in this endeavor. 

(if you would like to memorize this with us, please comment or message me, we would love to do this as a community and be able to encourage and hold each other accountable)