I
saw a movie the other day while I was at my mom’s called The
Longest Ride, about a modern day
cowboy type, going to rodeos riding the bull, girlfriend who was an
artist wanting to live in NY and do the art museum thing, who come
upon a crash site and rescue an old guy (Alan Alda – probably one
of his best roles) who had this big box of love letters. While the
girlfriend stays at the hospital awaiting word on the old guy, she
starts reading these letters, ends up going back to the hospital over
and over to visit the guy. Anyway, a most excellent story, well
acted. What it did for me was to really get me to thinking about
everyone on earth, century after century, billions of people, and
each and every one have a unique story. Each person, so different
from each other, yet so similar, how each one goes through life,
through bad/good experiences, developing their personality,
character, etc., each one with a unique story from beginning to end,
yet similar in that we are all human. How many ‘stories’ are
lost to history. Sure , the famous get remembered, each town has a
‘history’ with their own ‘famous’ people, but how many
stories/lives are ‘lost’ to history, people never to be
remembered. Sure, families bury their members, but after a couple
generations, no one remembers them anymore. I got the family history
album out the other day and realized that if I hadn’t spend the
many years/hours working on that, writing it out, sharing it (I sent
33 copies of this 300+ page book to key members of the family back in
1991), that if I hadn’t, ‘our’ collective family story would be
‘lost’.
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| Me in the 80's as a concert flutist - this was from my posters |
My
cousins came over and we sat there today as a family, going through
the pictures and talking a bit about the family, resemblances mostly
(who looks like who), but the idea seemed to pass over the others,
but really struck me, that each one of these people have a whole
‘story’ themselves. But really, even though we are family, what
do we really know of each other. Not much. Mostly everyone keeps to
the surface issues/topics, never going deep. But even more, spread
that out to friends, etc. of all the stories lost to history. But
God knows us, each and every moment of each and every one of us –
wow, how big is that!
I’m
in kind of a weird state of mind lately – looking at the fragility
of life (so many people dying just the past couple weeks: Marie, my
mom’s best friend and Louie’s first wife dying the same day as
William’s mom, Pastor Marilyn Tucker from Calvary Temple church (we
had met her in 2011 when we were having our prayer meetings there,
plus she married William and I, William saw her as his ‘spiritual
mother’), plus my mom having had her 2nd
open heart surgery earlier this month, I was thinking about the
triviality that most people live life – what a waste. The Word
says ALL will be burned up in the end, those who do not serve God,
those who are not truly saved, what a waste and they don’t even
realize it! That they don’t even realize the horror they are about
to encounter in the hereafter. When you look at the ‘life line’
of history and we are each just a ‘blip’ of a dot on that line,
such a short life really (70-80 years) and what a truly short time
that is. We spend 20 years of our life growing up, 20 years or so
raising kids, having a family, 40-60 years or so working at
meaningless jobs for the most part – what a waste. I only truly
feel ‘alive’ when I am doing what God wants me to do, serving and
helping others, sharing the love of Jesus. That is true life –
living for God – and nothing else matters! Even looking back at my
own life, really, what a waste it was for the most part. Sure, I had
moments here and there of truly serving God, really living, but for
the most part thinking about how much of my life I’ve wasted on
trivial stuff, getting bunged up on stupid, worthless, small issues.
I am so much, so amazingly free now more than ever and I have
‘nothing’ really to show for my life in the way of ‘stuff’,
because it doesn’t matter! It’s the relationships that matter –
it is our souls that matter! EVERYTHING physical WILL be burned up!
I just wish I could get this message across to everyone! Yes, prayer
is the key, and I rely on God to touch each and every one of the
people I come in contact with, in a powerful way to get their
attention. |
| Mom's back yard |
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