…Are today! Unbelieveable. This trip has flown by. It’s held many many things that I will remember for a long time, and some that I imagine I will never forget :)

Now, does anyone remember that I posted about a secret a few weeks ago? Maybe a month ago by now. The “secret” happened in California, and my best friend flew down from Oregon to see me :) It was wonderful :)

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I am in the middle of reading Oliver Twist, and I can’t tell you how my heart fell when, after taking the books out to return them to the bookseller, Nancy takes him off the street and back to Fagin. Horrors! It made me want to tell Mr. Brownlow (I think that’s his name?) what is going on and beg on behalf of Oliver for the truth to be known! Amazing book. I’ve seen the movie too many times, though, I dislike how imagines from it pop into my head all the time. Same with Great Expectations, which I just finished, AND For Whom The Bells Toll. Don’t let your young children become acquainted with movies made about classics :P
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We are going out three times today - to church, this morning (to attend), and then two concerts this afternoon and evening. It will be a nice exhausting finish to Florida concerts. But for some reason I don’t think I will be exhausted, although I ordinarily would be. I am going to miss singing with my family when we aren’t all together someday. For some reason, about a year and a half ago I started really thinking about what was going to happen when we broke it up, and ever since I have had “pre-nostalgia.” People are always saying how they look back on their family now, because we sing for a lot of older people. I can just imagine when we’re in our 60s, and some of us are maybe gone from this earth, and looking back on young, happy times. Life does something as you move on, sorrows and joys multiply. I admire old people just for that. It’s as if they’ve been through a war. People who live through wars didn’t *choose* to be in the war, nor might they have made the best choices during the war, but they still lived through it. Just because older people aren’t proud of being old and are sad about not being young doesn’t mean they didn’t live through life.

It also stands to be said that people who are in their 70s and 80s have lost more than people my age, in general. They’ve lost more people to death, they’re endured more aches and pains and trials, a lot of women have withstood the trial of bringing their children into this world, and some of them have even lost children under tragic circumstances. But they’ve had more to lose, also.

So, for me, pre-nostalgia has been acute at times, and I’ve cried at concerts over it. It doesn’t just stop at not being one of the singing MacDonalds who travels in a bus, it goes on in my mind to imagine some of us missing - it makes me cry now.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

I need to dwell on those things, and trust God for the rest :) The greatest consolation is God and his word. I believe it.

Posted by Bonnie under Uncategorized