Old notes that still ring true <3

Last year I attended a writer’s conference in Colorado; as you may remember if you read this regularly. 

At the opening session, the conference developer and facilitator Tricia Lott Williford said you can write a book ten minutes at a time. 

I often remind myself that on this little space of the internet we call Journey Onward, I have done just that several times over. 

So today I add another chapter to a book I am writing in my head that may never reach print…but still I write…ten minutes a time. 

There are several of those books floating around on scraps of paper and in my mind, but this one is on the various part time jobs I have held over the course of my teen and adult life and all the many lessons gleaned. 

This thought was jotted down on an index card tucked in a book I just finished entitled Humility by Andrew Murray. 

I wrote it a number of years ago when I led a group of high school cheerleaders and also taught a couple of classes at the local Christian school. 

It says:

I have learned that when a teenage girl says, “I love you, Mrs. Reimer!!”, with a lot of enthusiasm, it often means, “I like how you are right now. You are making life good for me.”

I am learning that this “love” is based on how I make them feel. This is not love. 

And that is ok. 

Just as their “love” is not genuine, neither is their “hate” when I displease or correct them. 

These are just emotions, not fact and they should not have much impact on the way I treat them.

I need to love unconditionally – no more when “loved”, no less when “hated” – but always with the steadfast love of Christ. 

So there is something we can all probably apply to a variety of people in our every day life. 

I know I have stumbled across this note many times over the years and moved it from book to book to mark the spot where I stopped reading. And each time, I remember afresh how challenging it was to lead a group of teenagers.

Several of those young girls who loved me when I was fun and not so much when I wasn’t are now women I admire and connect with who have some miles under their belts and some people they have been refined by and they are lovelier for it all. 

And I love them. 

Really love them and have, in turn, been loved back <3