Through Her Eyes

This morning I was going through some of my digital photos and came across a few that really prick my heart when I see them.

In 2006, I took my daughter on a Mother-Daughter trip to Northern New Mexico and Colorado. She was nearing the teenage years and I wanted our time to be special as well as informative. We talked, sang our favorite worship songs, and listened to cds. We also listened to James Dobson's "Preparing for Adolescence" series.

My daughter had never been to the mountains before. Seeing the beauty that God created inspired her but also caused her to feel fearful. She is afraid of heights. I wanted her to face this fear and we would do it together.

I pointed out the ski lift and approached the topic of us riding it to the top together. She would have nothing to do with it. However, after dinner that evening, we were on the main street watching everyone stroll by and enjoying the cool mountain air. She kept staring up at the immobile ski lift and posed this question to me, "Mom, have you rode it before?" I told her that I had many times. She then asked if I had felt scared too. I told her, "many times". I related to her that when I ride on that particular ski lift in the summer at a certain level all you hear is the whispers of God. Truly the silence that rushes through ones ears is awesome and the beauty that He created is surrounding you. She decided that the next morning would be 'the day' to face her fear.

The first picture shows the look of awe on her face. I just love it!





The ride was not without a little scare factor thrown in but isn't that all about being refined in the fire? The ski lift stopped suddenly to let on a mountain biker. I knew this but my sweet girl did not. She immediately clung to me and started to cry. I admit that the chair was shaking a little more violently than I remembered and in my heart, I was very nervous, but I soothed her and once again the lift began moving again.





The second picture says it all. I love the sign that she was standing next to, 'The Easy Way Down'.














For those of you that have teenage daughters, you understand how important the PHONE is to them. This is right after we got off the lift and she wanted to call her Daddy. She borrowed my cell and believe it or not we had reception 10,500 feet up on top of a mountain!





















Finally on our way back down I snapped this picture.










This picture is what prompted my post. The look of excitement, joy, and delight. She had met her fear. The Lord met her on that ride and was at the top to welcome her with soft breezes. We rode that same lift two more times before we headed to Denver. It was a sweet time.

WFMW - Documenting Athletic Events for Kids

This fall two of my teenage sons played football. One played for the freshman team and the other, a sophomore, played for the Junior Varsity and Varsity teams. At times they both had games on the same night but different parts of the City. Most weeks we were gone three nights a week to games either at home or away. Some nights I had a hard time remembering which child I was watching and my saving grace was thankfully they had totally different numbers.

I really wanted to document their football season so that I could at a later date scrapbook all the pictures and add journaling. What really worked for me was to take a picture after each game of the scoreboard. Either that night or the next morning I would write up a synopsis of what happened and especially if one of our boys had a great play and his name was called out over the loud speaker I would add what he had done. I also went to the website for the football team and snagged the write up by the coach. I placed this information into a Word file with the name of the child and the date of the game. I also created a football folder and within that folder had subfolders for each boy. As I typed this up I would file it into the corresponding folder. I also linked to any articles that were in our local paper and dropped them into the folder as well so I could match up the actual clipping with the correct child. I created the same folders to hold the pictures that were taken of each son.

Looking back now I have a great history of each game, the score, specific plays that our boys participated in plus the pictures that go along with each. It sounds very confusing but believe me it is not (see example below). I am excited to have the chance to give each son a disc of all this information one day. I have also added film from the coaches and a couple of slide shows that were shown at the football banquet two weeks ago. It has been a breeze to journal their pages. Our son that is a freshman in high school went on to be undefeated this year. I am very happy that I kept such detailed records so that I can document this feat that has not happened in our school district since my brother played for the same school nearly 25 years ago! Works for me! To see more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.
Example:
Football 2007 Folder
Seth football2007 Folder – write ups, journaling, newspapers
Sethpictures2007 Folder
Zach football2007 Folder – write ups, journaling, newspapers
Zachpictures2007 Folder