Memories

It is always good to see old friends. Sometime in the next while we will have opportunity to see people who were part of our past. It has been said that we entertain many people as we travel through life. I wonder if entertain is the right word? Some come for a little while. Others come and stay a lifetime. The wonderful thing is, it doesn’t matter how long they stay but how much we learn from each other as we travel together.
A number of years ago, I had opportunity to reconnect with a friend from the past. We talked about how we were doing today and then we talked of the past. You have probably done the same thing. We all talk of the past and the ‘stupid’ thing’s kids do when they are young and foolish. It was only after we parted that I realized, in those fleeting moments we had been transported back to the people we were. For a little while it was strange because I feel we were 15 and 16 all over again. Those old experiences, those feeling, those moments, came rushing back. And we lived them all over again. Then there was the realization, we were not who we were. But of an instant, while we talked about our shared experience we became who we were.
Throughout that conversation we found ourselves saying, “do you remember . . . I remember . . . ” and usually ended with, “we learned a lot since then.”
The reminiscing inevitably moved on until we started to talk about what has happened in the years since we last saw each other. We talk about our marriages, our jobs and our experiences. Then we talked about the children we raised and where they are today. Intermingled with the here and now, we returned to the other kids we hung out with and where they are today. We even talked of those who are no longer with us. Time changes things. There was the sharing of where life had taken us and how we arrived where we are now. The kids have grown, and the parents are gone, moved from one house to another to another, from place to place to place. How our lives change.
The last part of our conversation ended with, “What happened? Why did we drift apart and go different ways?” How fitting our conversation ended this way. That question still continues to reverberate in my mind. Last year at my high school reunion the same thing happened over and over as I met many people from my past.
When we return to a former church for an anniversary we will meet old church friends and the memories will start all over again. In this context we talk of what we learned from this pastor or that Sunday school teacher. We will talk of people long past and those in our recent past. Each part of our life produces memories. They change us into who we become. Now as we look back, we realize how important they have been.
One day, when God’s timing is just right, we will walk into His presence and talk about all those moments when He walked in our lives. We will talk about the past, where we have come from, how we have grow, the times we drifted away from Him. We’ll talk of what had happened along life’s way and how we arrived where we are, in heaven talking face to face with Him.
I’ll leave you with this. What memories will you and God have to talk about arising out of this week? Rob