Treasures from the Past

I'm very sentimental when it comes to certain things, such as pictures, letters, or things that involve my family now or those who have passed on.  Yesterday, as I was looking around the house for some missing personal documents, I came across an envelope that said, "Keep - Wedding Ceremony".  I recognized it to be my maternal Grandpa's writing. 

Grandpa had done part of our wedding ceremony in 1988, and I could tell that it was his typed-out portion of the wedding vows. There was also a copy of the very detailed wedding "schedule" I had made (Yes, at 19 years old I was my own wedding planner before I ever knew there were wedding planners.) I vaguely remembered finding the wedding envelope in a drawer in Grandpa's house after he passed away.

As I dug deeper into the envelope, I found some other papers that I had no idea were there.  There was a small calendar from the grocery store he and Grandma owned for 30 plus years in Hollis, OK.  It was from the year, 1969, and had never been used.  That was the year I was born!  Apparently he and Grandma had kept it for me, but I never knew about it!

I opened up another letter, written in cursive.  It was actually two letters and I guess they had stapled them together and kept them for me, yet never said anything about them. These letters were written by me, and I'm assuming I was in 3rd or 4th grade, just since it was in cursive and because of some of the things I said.

My own children have gotten a kick out of hearing what I wrote in the letters to my grandparents.  They think it's pretty neat for me to have found something from my childhood.  I do, too!  I'm so glad they kept that letter and that I'm reading it all these years later.

Letters from the past are certainly a treasure, aren't they? They connect us to people.  They help us remember things from the past.  They contain memories about special people and special events.

Actually, we all have a letter from the past that is a treasure.  Do you know what it is?  The Bible!  It's from the past, but it's God's letter to us for the present and for the future.  The problem is that sometimes we're not quite as excited about the Bible as we are a letter from a friend or loved one.  Sometimes we don't have the same feeling about digging into God's Word as we do digging into other things.

Finding that letter that I wrote years ago is special to me and I'll treasure it always....but, may I treasure the Bible - God's letter to me even more so.