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Savoring the Moments

Why I Scrapbook

By Wanda C. Parks Published 3 years ago 2 min read
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I absolutely LOVE scrapbooking! Of all the creative things that I like doing, scrapbooking is hands down my favorite. Do you know what scrapbooking is? Scrapbooking is a 2.5-billion-dollar industry. There are over 3,000 scrapbooking stores nationwide in the United States, serving 25 million scrapbookers. For those who don’t know, scrapbooking is a way to preserve photographs and other memorabilia in books instead of digitally or worse yet, in an old shoebox somewhere. Full disclosure – I am a Creative Memories consultant, mainly because I love the enduring quality of their products. However, none of that explains why I am a scrapbooker. Simply put, scrapbooking connects me to the past, preserves the present and reminds me of God’s presence, provision and promises in my life. Scrapbooks help me to remember that my life has been and is beautiful.

Scrapbooking connects me to the past because I have photographs of great-grandparents and other relatives that I did not have the privilege of meeting. I have been able to get to know them through the pictures and preserve their stores for generations to come. From pictures of my great-grandfather with his hound dogs by his blue pickup truck to my birth father in his military uniform and still other pictures of grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins, I have been able to glean a little about the people who came before me.

Scrapbooking also preserves the present. It captures the special moments as well as the day-to-day seemingly mundane moments. I am the proud mother of six adult children, grandmother of two with three more due within the year. And, despite the pandemic, we have celebrated birthdays and holidays and baby announcements and marriage proposals and graduations…you get the picture! All the kinds of things that people generally think of for scrapbooking. But I also have scrapbooked walking in the rain with my granddaughter and baking and decorating cupcakes and even fake sleeping in the seat that was just stolen. These moments of joy are all things that also make the scrapbook.

So, scrapbooking connects me to my past, preserves the present but most importantly, scrapbooking is a way to remember God’s presence, provision and promises in my life. It reminds me of His faithfulness to my family and myself in the past. The last minutes college scholarship awarded to a child who was pacing her bags even as she didn’t have enough money to go. The trip to Florida and back to stay a week at the Gaylord for a competition with only $200. The Christmas my children experienced after their dad, and I separated and neither of us were working. Pictures and stories of trips to Paris, Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Disney World. Things big and small that showed us how much God loves us and cares for us.

One day, I won’t be here, but my children, and my children’s children and so on, will have the opportunity to know their family, celebrate the joys lived and be strengthened in their faith. Birth certificates show you were born, death certificates show you died, but scrapbooks show that you really lived. Savor the moments of life…scrapbook!

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