Somewhere To Store Your HOPE

I've been reading this book and I just have to share this!

 

Creating A Hope Chest

 

Hope is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul ...

                                                            - Emily Dickenson

 

Hope chests are traditional gifts from mothers to daughters in the days when young women brought household dowries with them when they married.  Hope chests contained bed linens, quilts, table linens, crockery, flatware, and dreams of domestic bliss.

 

I didn't have a hope chest when I got married.  Did you?  I dreamed of getting one for my sixteenth birthday, but we didn't have the money, so it became a dream deferred.  I remember poring over the Lane Furniture ads in Seventeen Magazine featuring a loving mother and daughter packing hopes for the young woman's future into a beautiful cedar-lined chest.

 

Why do I remember this?  Because I've been excavating my authentic self.  If you dig deep enough, it all comes back to you.  And you'll often be surprised by what you discover.  So here I am, thirty years later, looking once again at hope chest advertisements.

 

However, since I've established a household without one, my hope chest differs from the traditional version.  Instead, I use a wicker picnic hamper filled with projects that I HOPE to do in the future.  A few weeks ago, I found a beautiful fabric at a remnant sale that will make a lovely tablecloth and napkins for Thanksgiving Day's Dinner.  Until I can set aside time to sew them, I'm storing the material in my hope chest.

 

A friend who recently separated from her husband of thirty years is starting life over again so she's redecorating the house they shared.  She found some gorgeous needlepoint squares at a thrift shop that she's going to use to recover her dining room chairs some rainy Saturday afternoon.  They'd be perfect in a hope chest until she gets around to it.

 

Get the idea?  Not every one of our desires can be immediately gratified.  We've got to learn to wait patiently for our dreams to come true, especially on the path we've chosen.  But while we wait, we need to prepare symbolically a place for our hopes and dreams.  I've even started a wicker hamper for my daughter which I'm filling up with books by my favorite women authors to give to her on her sixteenth birthday.  I "hope" to present them for her in a beautiful cedar lined chest.  Then my dreams of a loving mother and daughter packing together for a young woman's future will come true!

 

I believe it will.  FAITH is the very first thing you should pack in a HOPE CHEST!

 

(an entry from SIMPLE ABUNDANCE - A DAYBOOK OF COMFORT and JOY by Sarah Ban Breathnach)

 

 

This woman inspires the most wonderful ideas ... I have a cedar chest full of sweaters I hardly ever wear anymore ... I could donate them to charity, or sell them at a consignment shop or "gift" them to my daughters (they actually like getting some of my clothes!) ... And put some of my future projects all in one place ...

I have four porcelain dolls that I want to sew little suits for ... I have collected blue velvet and blue brocade, blue ribbon, buttons and white lace ... but I haven't gotten around to putting it all together ... 

I have a journal for each of my children ... I write to them occasionally ... mostly telling them when they have done something that impressed me or made me proud.  Of course, I tell them how proud I am but I wantthemto be ableto see it too.  One day, I will be gone, and they will wonder what I thought or what I would say and I want them to hear me say that I am proud of them and I love them and I believe in them ... because I do and I will ... long after I'm gone.

I also have an endless box of clippings, old family photos and material for a gorgeous family history book ... I have traced branches of my family all the way back to my great-great-great grandparents, complete with pictures, service certificates, baptism certificates, marriage certificates, old photographs, original deeds and immigration papers ... but I have to lay them out ... a gift for my Mom and Dad, sisters and brothers, children and grandchildren ... They'd be safer in a cedar chest ... I could get it done by next Christmas if I work on it, a little at a time ...

 

I have the prettiest fabric ... would make a gorgeous wall hanging ... It could go in there too!

 

I have a collection of antique handkerchiefs ... and some really pretty silk scarves ... PERFECT for a cedar chest ...

 

That would give me more room in my "arts and crafts closet" ... which is full of canvases, paints, ceramic houses (I paint them for my Mom's Christmas Village), beads and bangles for making jewelry, how to books on painting and beading ... I haven't been to the back of that closet in a while ... Time to sort out, prioritize ... If I'm not using it, find someone who can!  

 

Just in time for spring, I'm cleaning out and getting organized ... Simplifying my life, which Sara Ban Breathnach is so good at writing about and inspiring.  I'm inspired!  I'm going to post this and get busy ... By this afternoon, I'll have a true HOPE CHEST and an ORGANIZED Arts & Crafts Closet ... and just like Sara said ... I have a good start already!  I'm starting with FAITH!   

Tags: Simple Abundance, Sarah Ban Breathnach, Hope Chest, simplifying your life, recovery, healing