Who Shaped Your Story?

As I sit to write, several thoughts slip through my fingers, and I dally around what would be my most important thing to say this day.

A song slips through my mind from Glady’s Knight, and if you admit you know it, then you are probably my age… If anyone would ever write my life’s story...

Do you hear it? Can you sing it?

You may ask what’s important about your story or even think there is nothing worth saying about your life that would interest your peer group or grandkids, much less several hundred years from now.

Maybe you’re right. But when you take your last breath, that gray matter of storage between your ears gets turned off. Your memories are gone. All your experiences and history are wiped out in a matter of seconds. All that will be left will be the intangible memories we have.

Who you are and what you think is lost to the future.

Sure. Social platforms may remember your postings, but when you look back at the wasted time you spent sharing memes, gripes, and useless data, ask yourself. Does that represent me? Sure. Digital books will die a mean death when computers are rendered senseless by a dying future, and physical books will be banned and burned as they were in Nazi Germany, or as told in a story by Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451.” Why 451? That’s the temperature at which paper combusts…

This past Sunday, I learned of a book by Frederick Douglass. A slave born here in the grand old US of A over 200 years ago. He lived a life like no other person I know. His experiences, how he overcame them, and his influences on others are legendary. His ideas strengthened the president’s stance against slavery. His familial influence helped a niece (Lucy Farrow) recognize the message from the Acts of the Apostles as she pastored a holiness church in Houston. She is known as the Mother of Pentecost. Read his narration that made it into print back in 1845. [Kindle Version]

You could spend a lifetime researching these people and never tap into the entire breadth of knowledge or experience. Except. Someone wrote a book. Someone told a story.

All of these stories affected me and who I am. In other words, they helped shape my story even when I did not know their names. How? They shaped my world. I could not imagine living any earlier than I have, but I’m thankful for the lives that helped me be who I am today.

Oh. But that’s not the whole story!

We continue shaping our story by how we choose to live. Some will be given opportunities and never do anything with them. Others will make something from nothing.

About 1968, I was told a secret about my IQ… Yes. It was high. That changed my outlook on learning, or, at the very least, it allowed me to think that nothing was impossible for someone who had the power to learn.

My first job was mowing the yard around the swimming pool where my dad worked, and I got paid $1.00 every Saturday morning at about the age of 6 or 7. There was a steep hill behind the diving board, and it was always a challenge when the grass was wet…and we mowed barefoot!

My first full-time job was in the summer of 1972. An assignment from my principle, Mr Troy Cooper at Channelview High School, had opened the doors for a summer job at First State Bank of Greens Bayou. On Federal Road. In Houston.

Both experiences shaped my life. First, I love to mow yards. Even more so on my tractor these days. And this job pointed me into my career of IT and Banking.

At the bank, I began making a whopping $1.05 per hour, and Texas’s minimum wage had just increased to $1.25 per hour. Big Dollars! Especially for a student between their Junior and Senior years in High School. Gasoline was a whopping .36 cents per gallon! An apartment with all bills paid was $75.00 per month. My used 1971 Dodge Dart Swinger could have been bought for around $2,500, and I got it for $1,700…

While on the job, I met the future Mrs. “Right,” and we married in 1974… We just celebrated our 49th year of marriage and are closing in on our 50th anniversary this July.

I have often stated that we are aiming for 65 years of marriage as my grandparents were married that long the year Granddad passed away. It was a goal in the making, and the older I get, the more I see this goal being achievable.

Shaping Life

See? Shaped by the opportunities presented, and recognizing and doing something with the good things. Or turning lemons into lemonade! You become in control of how you shape your life for the future.

I pause this 69th year of life and consider where I’ve been, what I’m doing, and where I’m going.

I’m a Christian, and there’s still more for me to do than what I’ve done. I love to write, and yes, there is so much more to pen with my fingers pounding the keyboard. I love my family, and I know there’s always room to improve how I show my love. I love history, so I’m interested in making some and telling the story.

And there’s more I want to learn to do. So, I keep applying myself. Uh… I keep shaping myself.

See. There is still some shaping left to do.

This scripture does not tell me that I’m done but that in every stage of life, there is room for a re-shaping and improvement. But think about it… The potter’s hands are not sitting still. They are changing even as they are shaping others.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:
“Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.”
Then I went down to the potter’s house,
and there he was, making something at the wheel.
And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter;
so he made it again into another vessel,
as it seemed good to the potter to make.
(Jeremiah 18:1-4 NKJV)

Thank you for reading.
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It helps me get my book written!