Memory keeping has always been a passion of mine. I have a wide variety of ways that, when I am dead and gone, will be a mess of treasures for my family to find. Journals here, photos there, random ticket stubs with notes on the back or polaroid photos of times gone by. Even as a little girl, I remember thinking that there was just SO much of life I wanted to tape in a book or capture in a jar to save forever!

I have tried ALL kinds of memory keeping thru the years. From taping things down in a book to ordering a printed book online, I LOVE having photos and stories saved to return to! But through all these trial memory tests, I learned one very important thing:

The memory won’t keep if I don’t keep it.

This sounds simple enough but I realized it doesn’t matter HOW I keep it, just that I DO keep it. If I don’t write down what my child said or print that special photo, there is a good chance that memory will fade and possibly disappear. There are too many amazing things we have lived, too many hard moments we have learned from and so much beauty that I don’t want to forget. In some ways, I feel I owe it to my family to preserve!

Do you think Ann Frank imagined the world reading her diaries? Or Abraham Lincoln thinking his letters were being shared with anyone but the intended recipient? Can you imagine the people who carved out symbols and characters on a giant stone 2000 years ago knew that their efforts would forward language studies as we know it?! We have no IDEA the power our stories might be able to carry into future generations!

Consider the times we are in now. I don’t know about you but I am seeing things I never expected in my social media news feed. Weddings held with face masks with people standing eerily far from each other, videos of humans fighting over butt wipes, and stories of generosity and love during so much death and sickness. The ENTIRE WORLD is going thru the same thing and the same time and we are all still a bit shocked and unsure of how to handle it.

Even still, I want to savor this. I want to remember those painful moments that made me shudder because it makes those joyous moments mean SO. much. more! I want to be moved to my CORE in empathy and hurt for fellow man but also be moved to tears and laughter over the wonders of the human spirit! I want to see God working in the hearts of His people, coming near to them in suffering and being the X that marks the spot on their journeys through this.

I want to keep this all and treasure it in my heart. Because it seems scary or overwhelming or beautiful or boring but it is all ours. Ours to take and make it into something that can remember, that can teach future generations, that can comfort or inspire. Just like those Goonies kids in the well…It is OUR time! And I want to save it.

My dearest friend Lauren has a class called Stories From Here starting April 7th that teaches us how to preserve and share our stories from exactly where we are. Even quarantine! It isn’t difficult or homework heavy! The class teaches you how to take great photos, what to look for in your day and how to save it in a way that you can actually use later!

I am not one to take online classes like this but this one has me SO stoked! She teaches us how to take the daily life we have, see the goodness and pain, document it all and squeeze the ever-loving goodness out of what is our new normal! I loved watching her do this a few years ago in Korea and this is the PERFECT time to reintroduce it!!

Want to join us? Check it out here to see all the amazing ways she sets us up for success! Sign up with the code “AmyB” to save 10% on the class! It begins on April 7th but she has some great and easy ideas to help prepare you for how to start looking for what to document. Check it out and join today!!

Bonus: I scrolled through my phone to see some screenshots of things I have saved that remind me of what life looks like now. It may seem trivial and unimportant, but I know I will want to remember these things year from now or help my younger kids solidify their memories of what they grew up thru. Check these images out and go take a few of your own? Whether you join the class or not (BUT YOU SHOULD!), these are photos worth taking!

Thanks for taking a peek at my new normal and how I chose to document it. You can follow me on Instagram at AdventuringWithAmyB to see more of our daily stories and adventures!