February Love Challenge Week 3

Jessica over at Muthering Heights has been hosting a February Love Challenge in which we have been given weekly tasks to help to demonstrate our love to our children. This weeks' task was to write a special Valentine to our children - a poem or a letter sharing what it is that we love most about them. Then, we were to read the letter or poem to them, if possible in front of the rest of the family.

This task was easy for me. A few years ago, on t.v., I saw a profile of a mother who was dying of cancer and who composed a video diary for her daughter, telling her all the things that she wanted her to know but wouldn't be able to share with her at the time. I have never forgotten that and one of my biggest fears would be to die before my children reach adulthood and to leave them without having told them things that I truly want them to know. Out of that fear, my letter binders were born.

Each binder contains letters that I write to my children. There isn't a set schedule and I don't do it all that often but my hope would be that if anything were to happen to me and I wasn't here to tell them and reaffirm all the time that I love them unconditionally, they would be able to read the letters from me, sharing my love for them, my pride in them and my total enjoyment of them. I read somewhere that children who experience truly unconditional love from their parents have a much easier time believing in a loving God and I hope that I can give my children a small glimpse of the love of God in my love for each of them. The only problem with the letters that I write is that I often find myself in tears as I write them.

This year, I wrote a letter to each child, a catalogue of things I love and I have put the letter into each binder. Pk does not know that she has a binder and while I did share this letter with her, I want the binder to be a secret. I hope to be able to give it to her either on her 18th birthday or when I drop her off at university. I plan to make the annual "love letter" a part of each binder and I hope that each child is truly able to appreciate just how much I love him or her!