feeling eternity

Last night I read a blog that really spoke to me. In the author's post entitled  'get in the picture' she reminisces about her children when they were just little and writes about how she wishes she was in more pictures with her kids so she could hold onto those sweet moments from when her children were younger. I was glad for the reminder that I should get in the picture and not turn down the person who offers to take a shot with me in it. Too often I think, oh I don't look my best so why be in the picture because I'll just be critical of the way I look. But as I spent the next hour+ after reading her post going through all the photos on my computer I was so grateful for every single picture I have of me with my kids... crazy hair, no makeup, didn't matter from the perspective of now... I just loved remembering, and seeing, that I was there too. 

Alongside the thousands of photos I have taken of my children, there are a few dozen of me. It brings tears to my eyes looking at these pictures of me with these little blond toddlers that are now such big kids. 

These are some of the pictures I found...

Last night I also listened to a BYU devotional that was given last year by Amy Jensen, a woman whom I visit teach. Her words really touched me. She talked about how preserving our memories can help us feel eternity. Her words gave me the gift of a beautiful new perspective. I want to share a few excerpts that really spoke to my heart:

The records that we keep can be incredibly powerful in building our faith and the faith of those who are most important to us, and that faith will help us see into the eternities. ...

When I was about to be married, my BYU stake president gave me some very good advice: He told me to take pictures and document my life and my marriage and my family. He explained that this would benefit my children, because they would see that my husband and I existed before they were born, that we loved each other, and that important things happened that they didn’t necessarily remember. He said that a record of our life through pictures would give our children a sense of eternity, because they would have evidence of good, happy, and worthy things beyond their own experiences.

...
I am so grateful that my sister Anne was a record keeper. She was also a mom, an eighth-grade reading and writing teacher, a Laurel advisor, a runner, a photographer, a sharer of recipes, and a blogger. She loved using technology to improve her life and to reach out to others.

Two and a half years ago this beautiful sister of mine was engaged in a brutal war with metastatic melanoma...
Most of the time I feel like she is very far away, but when I read those words from her blog, I feel her presence and I know that her spirit and her body—her fierce and gentle soul—are not lost. Those words have power to bring Anne’s presence to me, and, more than that, those words have the power to transport a portion of my soul back to a time before cancer and loss and forward to a time of resurrection and reunion. Those words—that testimony—help me feel eternity.

Words and pictures and memories can help us remember the past and see the future, all at once, thus helping us to feel eternity. I think I understand what Amy is talking about as I pour over these photographs and remember back, and disappear into my thoughts. They take me to a place that is neither past, nor present, nor future. I think where it takes me, is to the place where I can feel eternity. And that, is a very beautiful place.