Lifebooks and Memories for All

Lifebooks

I spent A LOT of time researching adoption while we waited.  After all, I did have 3 years!  At the time  my husband was working a lot, so he often happened to work when I was off.  That left me and my computer, along with a million Yahoo adoption groups!  I was a Yahoo group and adoption (at least adoption in theory) genius.  One of my favorite topics was lifebooks.  

What is a lifebook?  

A lifebook is a just that–a book about your little one’s life. More specifically, it’s a scrapbook for adopted children about how their life began.  It is a story of their lives before they officially joined your family.  With adoption, there are lots of questions about life before family as they know it.  A lifebook is your attempt at answering those questions. It is often a written record of everything you know about their lives up to the point that you got them or just beyond.  It is an attempt to answer as many of their questions as you can.  It is a way to open the line of communication between you.  You can read more about lifebooks on one of these two websites, or find samples on Pinterest.  

Lifebooks for Biological Children?

All my kids love looking at my old scrapbooks.  So why wouldn’t even my biological girls like lifebooks? There may not be the same motivation behind them, but the girls do love to hear the stories of their births.  I could include what our family was like before them and how they came along and made it even better.  All kids deserve to feel special and loved and know that they are right where God wants them to be.  

Recording Other Memories

I have seen so many scopes (Periscope app videos) lately from other bloggers who are scrapbooking and creatively journaling.  It has reignited my passion for my scrapbooks, lifebooks included.  I have a serious love for the ease of digital scrapbooking and online photo albums too.  It doesn’t really matter how you record your stories, it just matters that you do.  Unfortunately there will come a day when we aren’t around to relay those stories in person. I want to make sure those stories live on.  God wants us to tell our children about what He had done for us and record His work in our lives.

   Tell it to your children,

   and let your children tell it to their children,

   and their children to the next generation.”  Joel 1:3 NIV

Not only should we commit to recording our memories for others, but scrapbooking is a worshipful experience for me.  I feel closer to God as I recall all He has done in my life.  I automatically spill out prayers of thanks for all the opportunities He has given me and how He has brought me to where I am today.

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19 NIV

It does take a time commitment, as all good things do.  With New Year looming around the corner, it may be the perfect time to finally get those pictures in order and do something meaningful with them. If you want to take baby steps, you could just commit to recording your favorite memories of this year in a photo calendar or small photo book.  Calendars come together quickly as you only have to pick 1 or 2 favorite photos of each month.  It could be a year long project, where you just commit to spending a couple hours each week to make a lifebook.  Little steps of commitment will reap big rewards!  

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Have you ever heard of lifebooks?  What do you do with all your photos?  How do you preserve your memories for future generations?