March is Memories Month

March is for memories this year  My goal for this month (God willing) is to write the narration for the “Special Memories Recital” with memories from some of my music students. I’m finding when I think of one memory it triggers other precious memories. I hope to type these random thoughts to use in a picture/thoughts book to display at that recital on May 30, 2015.

Today will be a hodgepodge of memories and thoughts i seem to be receiving as part of this month for memories.  Ramble with me if you’d enjoy the various memories of this month. Plus memories of years gone by.

Triggered by a comment on Facebook today are many shocking times in my life. Literally! Until the last few years I was subject to giving and receiving many static shocks.  Too numerous to share in this post, one in particular came to mind as Carol shared her post.

We were at a sales convention in Illinois where a top executive of Creative Expressions was to be the keynote speaker.  He was a charming gentleman from the East Coast with his distinctive accent.  We were arriving at the same door at the same time. Being a courteous gentleman he put his hand on my back to escort me through the door. At the same time reaching for the metal door bar to open it for me.  The static spark snapped as he received the  shock from touching me and the bar.  His comment,  “What a sparkling  personality you have!” as he jumped from the contact.

Over the years I have shared that shocking ability with many people, in a store when the clerk touched my hand and change flew everywhere.  In a factory when the supervisor touched me and post cards were scattered.  Until I learned how to avoid it, when a party hostess reached to take my coat in the winter.  When Bill and I kissed when we were standing between the refrigerator and the electric stove   and   and   and   ………..

So many memories connected to other people,  when a single memory brings more memories.  Time after time I’m impressed by how blessed we have been and continue to be by the people and things God has brought into our lives.

As I approach my 80th birthday my brain, with all the memories, is like many attics filled with all the bits and pieces of our lives.  Surfacing like things floating on water with no specific connection to each other.  Things that have been forgotten until someone or something reminds us.

Friends like Robert and Shirley, not on the front surface of our thoughts until a post on Facebook refers to Shirley’s sister.  Memories flooding, bringing back times when we were all young; raising our children in the same church.  How they helped welcome us into the church when we moved to Charlotte.

That reminds me how we came to go to the Assembly of God that first Sunday and why we stayed.

We had intended to go to the Pilgrim Holiness Church in Eaton Rapids when the children and I came over to join Bill.  We set the alarm so we would have time for the four of us to get ready and make the drive to Eaton Rapids.  For the only time ever;  it never failed again, the alarm did not ring.  No time to get ready and make the drive. We didn’t want to be late the first time we went there.  So I asked Bill where we might go in town.

He said, ” Dwight told me that Pastor Taylor has a church in Charlotte.  Why don’t we go there?”  We had known the Taylors when they were pastors in a church near Applegate.  We had met them when  they bought groceries at Mom’s store.

So we went that first morning and  the Lord impressed us to stay.   A special memory that has been the source of numerous others.

When you think of special memories what is the first one that comes to your mind?

Waiting to finish this today the Lord added another very pleasant memory.  A matter of business put me in contact with a lovely young lady with an equally lovely name, Starlene.  After the business was concluded we chatted briefly but long enough to know I would like to know her better as a new friend.  We never know what blessing the Lord will provide as we serve Him with an obedient heart.

The last memory of this blog is the memory of a favorite Christian author C.S.Lewis and one of his quotes   “Nobody can always have devout feelings; and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about.  Christian,  love … is an affair of the will. But, the great feelings come and go,  his love for us does not.”