Treasure Chests

So Thomas' birthday is just a short two and a half months away. For me that means it is time to start planning a party. Now Thomas is old enough to help pick the theme and even some of the activities. A couple of weeks ago we were talking about it and he announced that he wanted to have a dinosaur party. I have to admit I was disappointed. Dinosaurs, really, what was I going to do with dinosaurs. The party is all about me and my creativity after all. Well, I sucked it up and realized it was his party after all and I would just go along with it (and he had plenty of time to change his own mind, or for me to change it). Well, he has changed it, at least for today. As of today, we are having a pirate party. Complete with a treasure map, hunt and chest and the possibility of a not so scary, Captain Hook and his little friend Mr. Smee. Now, this I can get excited about. As Thomas and I were out back collecting rocks and worms, we began to discuss just what might be found in the pirate chest. He was so full of fun ideas.

Now, with this in mind I began to read this post,

http://www.itakejoy.com/treasure-chest-of-the-soul-one-cannot-give-what-is-not-there-part-1/. I love it when God is ironic and starts to reveal common themes to change your heart or teach you something. Sometimes these themes pop up for months before I begin to see the lesson. Other times they pop up as I am learning the lesson. Today it came in the same day. As I've been thinking of a pirate chest to fill up with goodies, God shows me how my own son's have hearts to be filled. Read this part of her blog:

"During a quiet time one morning, my eyes lighted upon one of my little chests and the Holy Spirit impressed me to look at the heart of my children as treasures chests. Filling the treasure chests of their hearts with truth, beauty, love, great thoughts, books and ideas, adventures, memories, traditions, wisdom, music, art, lessons, all that I could imagine became a purposeful goal. I realized that I wanted to fill them with such an abundance of relics of eternal value, that they would draw beauty, strength, guidance, assurance, courage, love the rest of their lives, so that they would always have bounty to draw from the rest of their lives.

Realization came to me, though, that I could not give to them what I did not myself possess. If I wanted the souls of my children to be rich, then my soul needed to be rich because it was my soul they would draw from. And so the idea of intentionality began to engage the imagination of my heart.

Whatever I filled my mind with became the tutor of their education as I lived my moments in their presence. Whatever I had learned and embraced, became for them the message on my heart of my day. Investing time every morning with the Lord became the passion I passed on each morning over breakfast."

The other thing I realized, as I sit here writing this post, is that I have also been trying to look at the eternal value things hold. How I spend my time, where I invest my energy, how I talk with friends and family. Does most of it, if not all of it, have eternal value. How appropriate that I was, just hours ago, thinking of trinkets to fill the treasure chest with that I come face to face with the idea of filling the treasure chest's I've been given in the hearts of my sons, with things with eternal value.

Wow! There's my life-changing challenge for today!