School Supplies

This week Grace and I went shopping for her school supplies.

Pencils


Erasers


Notebooks


Folders


Before long I began to realize how grown up her list has become.
Someone just looking into our shopping cart wouldn't know if these items were for a first grader, or a college freshman.
The last thing on our list was also the most special to Grace.
The backpack.
We had a conversation on the way to Wal-Mart. Grace wanted to know if she could pick out her backpack all by herself this year. With a sigh of release I told her yes; that this year she was old enough to choose whichever backpack she wanted.
I watched her as she carefully looked through the wide variety of choices.

Hannah Montana.

Wizards of Waverly Place.

Pink skulls and crossbones.

At last she made her selection...

Barbie.




I agreed that it was the perfect choice.

It's pink and sparkly.

It's sweet and Innocent.

It's young and beautiful.

It's Grace at this moment in this time.

It is a first grade girl's backpack.

In the midst of a shopping cart full of adult looking school supplies, I could not have been happier to have that pink Barbie backpack lying there; reminding me that I do still have a few years left with Grace as my little girl.
I pray I treasure each day for all it is.
I don't want to dredge the future.
I don't want to mourn for the past.
I want to take today as the gift God has given me
and I want to invest in that.
In these precious lives that are here.
Today.

~The living, the living—they praise you, as I am doing today; fathers tell their children about your faithfulness.~
Isaiah 38:18-20