This weekend my husband texted me from work letting me know we didn’t have to have dinner rolls for Easter just because it was traditional. Unless I just wanted them. I could have said, “I love rolls. I want to have them for Easter.”

But no. I’m wordy and responded with an essay on the value of honoring certain traditions. It’s only rolls! But to me the presence of my grandmother and great grandmother stand beside me as I remember the things they did, the treasures and skills passed on to their children and grandchildren. It’s more than rolls. I find myself singing silly songs like my Nunu and my daddy. Or quoting nursery rhymes my mother read to me. I choose decorations in my home and find they remind me of my grandmother. I shop with the frugality of my mother. I am pieces of the strong “steel magnolia” women who came before me. I am proud of them.

I appreciate a good story like my grandfather-as any good Scot would. I am also grateful for the protection of this strong grandfather who lit into anyone who he thought may have put his granddaughters in harms way. I am grateful for paternal grandparents who raised pigs and chickens and gave us chores of collecting eggs and slopping hogs. Visits to their house was never fancy, yet I still love chenille bedspreads and cherry almond lotion.

But I can also unapologetically embrace the things in me which are unique. I can dance through the house as I sweep or embrace my Bilbo Baggins days of armchair reading or the running out the village proclaiming, “I’m going on an adventure” (One of my favorite scenes).
As I get older I am learning I can honor my present, look to the future with hopeful expectation, and embrace my history all at the same time and in the same moment. I appreciate more each day the prayers said over me, the scriptures taught to me. I can say as the Psalmist said, “LORD, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth.” I can say this because it was taught to me-this honor of the the Lord’s house. This honor for the Lord’s people.
And I can rest in the knowledge that my husband loves me in all my nerdy quirkiness. And even more than this-my God loves me. And I am consumed with a grateful heart.

“Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.”
Deuteronomy 32:7