To My Children

This is day 24 of my Journaling through January series.

You choose: a. write a letter to your children or someday children telling them what you hope for their lives. or b. write a letter to your younger self telling her of what to look forward to.

I pick option a. Though I only have one child right now, we'll have more in the future. This letter is for all of them.

Dear children,

It's me, your mom. I'm supposed to write a letter about what I hope for you. That list is very, very long, so I'll try to include only the most important things.

I hope your days are filled with laughter. There will be grouchy days, but I hope you won't remember them so much. When you look back on your childhood, I hope you can say that it was filled with happiness, security, and love.

I hope you let me share your heartaches and sad days. I'll always be there to kiss it better, no matter how old you are.

I hope you love to read as much as I do. I have this idyllic picture in my mind of us sprawled all over the living room, each absorbed in a really good book. Every once in a while, one of you will laugh out loud at a funny part. One of you might ask me to define a hard word. I will hand you a dictionary. If you need help, we will look it up together, and my heart will just burst with love and pride and joy. (If you don't really like to read, that's ok, too. There are many other idyllic family scenes I have in my head.)

I hope you know your Heavenly Father and Jesus love you. We, your daddy and I, will do everything in our power to surround you with their love. I pray that the Lord will bless our efforts, because we will probably fall short more than once.  

I hope that, when you fly the nest to strike out on your own, you will leave knowing the right things. How to say please and thank you. How to choose matching clothes. How to say sorry and how to forgive. How to maintain a close relationship with us and with your Heavenly Father. I really, really hope you will learn these things, because to be honest, your Dad and I are guessing a lot of the time. We're not always quite sure that we are saying the right things or teaching the right lessons. So I'm crossing my fingers and praying that your brains will be smart enough to filter out all the stupid things I do or say, and just keep the good ones. The stupid ones are good for laughing at later, but the good ones will help you be happy.

I guess that's really my final, most important hope for you. I hope you will be happy. I hope you will know where to go to find true happiness. It's not in cool cars, or candy, or television shows, or the perfect body, or expensive clothes. It's in doing the right things, and it's in loving and being loved.

Love, 

Mommy 

Journaling through January is a series which can be found on iamalongfortheride.blogspot.com