WRITE IT DOWN

• Exodus 16:14 says, "The Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book."
• The Living Bible says, "Write this into a permanent record, to be remembered forever."
• Psalm 102:18 says, "This shall be written for the generation to come."
• Malachi 3:16 says, "A book of remembrance was written before Him."

God is so interested in having words recorded that He left us with our most precious legacy, the infallible Word of God, our guideline for life. He knew it would be necessary for us to have His Word in written form.

What are you writing and recording for the generations to come? We must not think only for today, but we must remember that generations will follow us. As parents, we have the awesome mandate from God to pass on His ways, not only to our children, but to our children's children and to their children! In this day of easy communication by telephone, we can often delay putting pen to paper.

Many people's memoirs and biographies were written from the letters they wrote to family and friends, but many today are leaving nothing behind that they have written.

I have been challenged about writing for the coming generations and recently wrote a legacy for our children which I will give to them at the appropriate time. As each grandchild is born, I write a poem for them - the story about their birth and the destiny that I feel that God has for them.

At present, we are keeping a family diary. We have done this from time to time, and wish we had kept it up regularly. We keep the hard-covered book on the family table. Everyone in the family can write in it - what is happening at the time, their thoughts or something they want to say to someone else, or something new they have learned. When visitors come, rather than signing a visitor's book, we ask them to write in the family diary - and so it becomes a record of our lives to keep for the generations.

My sister-in-law made a beautiful memory for each of her children when they turned 21 years. In a book she placed a photograph of each year of their life wrote a poem to go with each photograph. What a beautiful memory and keep sake.

Many mothers keep special baby books to write down all the little things their children say. Oh I wish that I had done this. I was so busy in the early days with three children in seventeen months, then four children under four years and later six children But if I had realized then how important it would have been for memories, I could have easily made the time. We think we'll remember all the cute things that each child does or says, but as the years go on, the memory fades. It is so important to write them down.