My friend Sophie and I were discussing life and boys while sitting on the roof of my church a couple weeks ago when I first heard about the craft project of all craft projects. The memory jar.
After seeing the idea plastered across Pinterest (where else?), Sophie had decided to make her very own memory jar. There are many variations of the project, but the general idea is that you fill a jar with… well, memories. Once the jar is full, you pour your memories out and have Good Nostalgic Times reminiscing.
Seeing as I still have all of my Pokemon cards stashed under my bed (including Venusaur), I knew this project was for me. I asked my mother if she had any mason jars around the house. My mother is something of a shabby chic wizard. Her ability to collect quaint objects of the vintage variety is unparalleled. Read: my mother has so many wicker baskets that she literally has baskets that serve the sole purpose of holding her other baskets. I wasn’t surprised when she offered me not one, but two, Mason jars.
Juxtaposition: In February, I stumbled upon a devotional detailing the life of Ann Voskamp. Despite undergoing the horrific loss of her younger sister, Voskamp’s heart was set on finding joy. She wanted to name 1,000 gifts in her life that she could be grateful for; things that she already had and perhaps hadn’t appreciated. This moved me. Why was I so often thankless?
Fast forward to late March. It had already been over a month since I had decided to make my own 1,000-gifts list, but I had made little progress. The list, which I had scrawled in a little blue notebook and long since forgotten, ended at No. 20.
Pathetic.
My memory jar, which I had started a few days after Sophie told me about hers, had an even shorter life span. I kept it for only a day before turning it into a Thankfulness Jar, inspired by Ann Voskamp and the lameness of my own 1,000-gifts list. Now each day I write down something I am thankful for on a slip of paper and toss it in. Music, ice cream and my sister have all made it into the Thankfulness Jar.
Making the jar made me aware of my own ungratefulness. Yet I look around and see so many things to be grateful for: the sound of the birds in the tree outside my window, my best friend’s smile, the cotton comfort of my grandmother’s old quilt. These are the types of things that John Piper described as “things that, if we didn’t have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore.” It’s unfortunate.
What started out as a simple craft project is slowly shaping into a lifestyle. Ann Voskamp knew that there was joy in thankfulness. So often we see what we don’t have, rather than the abundance of blessings that already fill our lives. I want to be more thankful for the everyday things: my favorite pair of jeans, an amazing album, a mug of hot chocolate. Even my mother’s wicker baskets.
