Notice

(maybe this time I’m writing this I’ll notice I should save this before I try to add images to it 😉

I’m good at noticing…it’s just what I notice that is the problem.

The shoes left on the floor under the coffee table, the handprint on the refrigerator, the dirty dishes carelessly thrown in the sink, the terse response to a question, the bickering of my boys.

 

I notice those things…like a boss.

But it’s the important things, the meaningful things, the joyful moments, I often forget to notice.

The way my boys always say ‘I love you” before they hang up the phone from talking with me (unless they call from school and there’s a girl with them…but that’s a whole other post ;)…even if they just spoke to me on the phone 2 minutes earlier.

The long hug from my husband for no reason.

The coffee pot filled with water and coffee grounds waiting for me for the morning, set by my sweet, sweet new teenager.

 

 

Seeing this last night, after we had been out at Mr. Football’s football banquet, made my heart melt.

I could’ve focused on the sneakers and snow boots left strewn around the house, the binders and books left on the kitchen table, the Nerf bullets littering the floors, but seeing that my boys thought of a way to bless me…to notice something about their momma that she loves, and still needed to be done…it reminds me that they are noticing me.

And that’s a blessing and a huge responsibility.  Because as they notice how I go through my moments, my days, my years, I am modeling how to follow Christ.  How to respond with love to the strewn about shoes, handprints on the refrigerator, and the dirty dishes.  The chaos and crazy of life on this earth.  And if I’m not noticing the meaning, the joy and the purpose of it all, I’m missing the whole point of the time I spent this side of eternity.

May I become a noticer of the good, and an ignorer of the bad.

May that be a legacy I pass on to my kids.

And I pray that it is one you leave for your loved ones too.