Gratitude

Last week, my fifteen-year-old daughter Treasure wanted to have a tea party with her sister Tia and me. We had tea biscuits with creamed honey, got out the dainty cups, saucers and fancy dessert bowls, and used a tea kettle that looks like a black cat. While we drank our tea on the patio in our back yard, (green tea with honey and lemon for me, black chai for the girls) we talked about lots of things—some serious but mostly silly—while our two little dogs lay in the extra patio chairs and waited patiently for us to finish so they could have the leftover biscuits.

Here are the pictures we took:






I don’t know what made Treasure want to do it, but I’m so glad we did.

Yesterday, a fifteen-year-old girl was accidentally shot in the head by one of her best friends—another fifteen-year-old girl. One is now dead, and the other was taken to the juvenile detention center and charged with manslaughter. Both girls have gone to school with my daughter Treasure since elementary school.

All day long, I kept thinking about these two families and how devastated they must be. Other times when I’ve heard about tragedies like this on the news, although I certainly feel sorrow for the families, it doesn’t hit home quite as much as this time. Every time I looked at my precious daughter today, I had to stop and thank God that this horrific accident didn’t happen to her, and I had to hug her and tell her how much I love her.

We shouldn’t wait for something terrible like this to make us appreciate the priceless gifts that our children are.

Hug your kids every single day. And if they want you to have a tea party with them or go play in the sprinkler with them or watch funny videos on YouTube or make cookies or go shopping for purple toenail polish or whatever, no matter how trivial it may seem or how busy you are, take the time to do it.

Because you can’t go back and do it after it’s too late.


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true.