Recently, my grandfather (an 86 year-old WWII veteran) self-published his autobiography, primarily for the family. It is an amazing history of his youth in Oklahoma during the Great Depression, his enlistment in the army at the age of 17, his 3-1/2 years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese, and then his post-war career and family life. We have been reading aloud from his story in the evenings as a family, and it has been a neat experience to have history really come alive in this way.

We just got a new puppy, and the baby has not been sleeping through the night regularly enough. So between the two of them, I’m either getting up for the baby crying and wanting to nurse or the puppy whining from his crate (either for some company or to go outside to potty). Honestly, I am just way too tired, and that never helps things. So I was having a bit of a difficult time going into the morning anyway…and what did I decide to do but balance the checkbook? That probably wasn’t wise because it stressed me out way too much. The older children did their reading, writing and math but we didn’t get to the electives that I had hoped to, so I was feeling frustrated about that. But then I thought about my Grandfather’s story.

When he enlisted in the army, he recalled saying goodbye to his father. He wrote, “Little did I know that we would not see each other again for five years.” And even when they did see each other again, it was not to be reunited as a family; my grandfather would only return to say goodbye to his family and then travel across the country to CT to marry the army nurse whom he had met post-war. He had younger siblings that he would barely know. One sister was born while he was in the service, who would never know her oldest brother as a part of the nuclear family. So as I was feeling a little frustrated about what “didn’t” get done today, I was listening to what we WERE doing. While I made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, my oldest was talking to his Grandma on the phone. All of my younger children were playing some rousing game of pretend in the girls’ bedroom. Laughing. Playing together. Enjoying one another. So, no, we didn’t “do” some of the school-related things that I had hoped to check off of our to-do list…but look at what memories my children were making, and the relationships they were building. We will never have this day again. One day, we will not be a family in the same way that we are today. So I am glad for what we did “accomplish” today. Oh, I am getting way too sappy, aren’t I?

Then I got to thinking…yes, family is important. I want us to enjoy each other. But we also need to have an eternal perspective as children in the family of God. What did we do today that was of eternal significance? What DID we do that won’t really matter when we go to be with the Lord? Just out of curiosity, I asked the children what they thought was eternally significant about their day. My 3 year-old said that she shared her toys with her little sister. My 4 year-old daughter said she was diligent about doing dishes with her sister–did most of them herself, in fact. And, she reminded me, God wants us to be diligent! My younger son said that he was diligent in his schoolwork, and read aloud some stories to his sisters. My oldest son said that he was diligent about his schoolwork as well, and he had spent some time with his dad before Daddy left for the week. And what did I do? Ultimately (after a bit of a rough start), I enjoyed my children and tried to make sure that they enjoyed each other. I reminded them that it’s not all about “today.” One thing that I didn’t do was sweep under the kitchen table after lunch. Not that it didn’t “need” to get done…but the crumbs weren’t that bad, and I decided I’d rather hang out with my boys for a while.