Stories Lost From Time

I was sitting very early this morning thinking about how life has changed with my dad and sister gone. It isn’t a maudlin thought. It’s simple reality.

After all, I knew them both and talked to them as often as possible, but now? I only have our memories.

Through my 65 years, I know dad and I talked about his past and history. I have good memories of this, and once you got him talking, well, you never knew what path he would go down. His life wasn’t easy, but I never heard him complain. His past was simply life as he lived it.

Ask him something that may be a difficult memory, and in my mind I see him sort of tweak his head to the side, shrug one shoulder, as if to say, Well.

My personal connection to the life he experienced is gone. Lost? Perhaps. What remains in my mind still exists, but it’s definitely not available to future generations unless I write them down. There is a book about Ace, Texas, where he is mentioned a time or two. His youngest brother is still with us, and there are memories from his time growing up during the same era.

But Dad’s stories? Gone.

Dad did not talk on the phone much…but if you got him going in person, he became animated, especially, when sharing stories with those of his age group. Many a coffee pot was emptied while the stories flowed around a kitchen table, in the living room, or across a fire on some waters shore.

Why Don’t We Remember Better?

We can kick ourselves for not recording stories with the marvels of modern technology. But pause for a moment. Isn’t this exactly how life has been lived for thousands of years? Technology may help us with the stories, but the storyteller is gone.

Maybe more than a recording of stories, what we really yearn for is the opportunity to hear the voice. Even when…. well, you know. As a youngster it was hard simply sitting and listening to the older folks! We had heard these tall tales before!

Maybe more than the story, it’s the camaraderie we truly miss when those stories are being shared around the campfire. There is something priceless about sharing to the next generation. Even when it’s repeated for the umpteenth time.

With my own kids I love to reminisce about life in the 50s’ and 60s’. Okay. Even the early 70s’. Those early years of my life were the grown years of my parents. And the rapidly aging time of my grandparents. I have vague memories of great grandparents, but little to remember them by.

I will do the best I can to share, but it is easier with an audience, questioning looks, and maybe even a little bit of wonderment. And the patience to hear some of the same ol’ stories. Again.

Tell Your Story

As my dad had a story to tell, so did his dad, and so forth. Each generation wants to leave an identity of their history behind. Stories. Lessons Learned. Examples of what it was like for them.

I know my dad lived a poor sharecroppers life, but I also know there was joy in their house. There had to be! 9 kids! My dad was a middle child, and his only remaining sibling is the youngest. Dad would talk about picking cotton beginning around 6 years old. In this picture he is sharing what it was like 80 years earlier in his life.

Not only did he enjoy telling stories, Dad could sing! Mostly deaf in one ear, and struggling to hear in the other (pre-tumor days), he could reach notes from low to high and stay on key.

It makes me wonder. When did his voice and talent develop? On which row of cotton did he finally find his voice? At which crowded dinner table did he comprehend his talent of getting a story told.

Since his songs were of narrow focus, how many of his words were actually the story of his life?

Here’s My Thought This Morning

Someday we will look over our shoulders at the present. What stories will you treasure from this time? There will be too many to share, and not enough time to communicate. What will be your story?

Fanny Crosby wrote a song (one of many) and it was published about 1880… The chorus is simple, but it speaks to me deeply about stories out of time.

Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.

We sing songs that talk about us describing the story of Jesus, and we mostly hear about them at those major events of the year. Christmas and Easter. But hidden away from the stories everyone knows are the ones we don’t speak about much.

What we truly know about Jesus is shared in the Gospel accounts of two that were with him, Matthew and John, and two who came along later in the story. Mark was a disciple of Peter and Paul. Luke was a disciple of Paul and is assumed to be a physician and possibly a Gentile. He wrote his gospel and the book of Acts, and was probably telling the complete story of Jesus and the Early Church.

What Story Will You Tell?

If I’m going to tell a story of Jesus, what would be my focus? Let me give you four areas of stories I’m interested in.

• Words: His teaching, or use of the parables? Or, would I wonder about the quickness of his mind to learn, process and share? I learn better when the story is told as a process, so, which story of his speaks loudest to me? Would I talk about his miracles, or the miles he walked down dirty roads to get to the need?
• Prayer: Remember his prayer in the Garden? But how many times did he wander away from everyone and pray by himself? What were those prayers like?
• Friends: How did he and Lazarus become such good friends that Jesus would weep before his tomb?
• Songs: What kind of songs did he like to sing? We only hear of the hymn sung at the end of the Last Supper before his agony of the Last Prayer, but he knew the Psalms of David!

Maybe any story will do, but the one that works best is the one needed in the moment, and the one that speaks the loudest to a need.

For me, I always tell the story of how he came to me in the middle of the night and shared with me the Power of His Word. It is my story…and you can Click here to read. If you are interested, that is…

“For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” 
Psalms 30:5 (KJV)
“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”  
Psalms 37:25 (KJV)

What’s your story? If you have something to share, when will you give it away to someone else? Don’t hoard it. Share it.