Memories.
Two conversations in the past few days connected me with some precious memories.
The first was via Facebook messenger. A former church member from the first church I pastored (from December 1988- March 1991) sent me a photo of an obituary in the local newspaper.
“Miss Rosa” kept our babies in our church nursery. Our small church with mostly older folks only had two littles most Sundays—my daughter and the daughter of our music minister.
She loved those girls like they were her own. When Mrs. Sweetie got a part time teaching job, Miss Rosa came to our house to babysit for a couple of hours on those work days. One of the first names our daughter consistently spoke was “Ro-ro.”
She was so precious to us during that time.
We were actually surprised to know that she had only recently passed and that she was only in her mid 80s. That means she turned 50 during our time there. That seems old when you’re in your late 20s!
The second conversation was by phone yesterday. A good friend from 30 years ago called to invite me to a reunion in September. We served together during my second pastorate (1991-2008).
He and his family joined the church pretty early during my tenure and we became fast friends.
In 1995, our music minister graduated from seminary and my friend came to me and said God had put it in his heart to help out while we were looking for our next music minister.
He had no music training, but he had a really nice tenor voice and great people skills. He told me he didn’t know what to do with his hands while he was leading worship, so I told him to just hold a microphone and sing.
This is common in churches now, but not so much 30 years ago.
Since I had musical training, I was pastor and choir director and he led congregational singing as a volunteer.
We were having such a good time that I really stopped looking for a music minister. Before we knew it, his “helping to fill in during the interim” lasted 8 1/2 years!
We’ve only seen each other occasionally for the past 20 years or so, but our 35 minute phone conversation yesterday was just like old times.
When I look back over my life and the opportunities God has given me in 47 years of “church work” what brings me the most gratitude is the people.
The relationships.
I’m convinced that one of the ways God shows us how much He loves us is by giving us people to love.
Very few people are going to remember the specifics of our words or our accomplishments.
What they’ll remember is how we treated them. If we made them feel valued. If we listened to them. If we laughed with them and cried with them.
Of all the opportunities I pray for in this season of life, the most important is that I’ll be encouraging to everyone I engage with.
How about you?
Be amazing today, my friend.
