“Our experiences are not nearly as powerful as our memories.”

A thought by Erwin Raphael McManus, (2014-02-25) from his book, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art (p. 85). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

  

I was thinking after reading this of a bad experience in my life that was a good memory.  It happened different times in my life.

My father was a minister and for half of my home life he was an evangelist.  In other words, we as a family traveled from church to church holding meetings.  For a big part of the time we lived in a house trailer, that’s what they were called back then and we would leave one church on a Sunday night and travel to the next one and start services there on Wednesday.  We would be there from Wednesday through two Sundays. 

Sometimes it would take all of the money we were given at the last church to get to the next one and somewhere in that next week we would run out of food if the church we were holding meetings in didn’t give us a food allowance.  Now that could have caused me to be angry at God and turn my back on the Church.  I mean we were out there doing all this good work and we were hungry but that is not what happened.  That bad experience is a good memory to me. 

What I remember is that my mom had the ability to go into a kitchen that had nothing in it and make a meal.  She was awesome.  I learned by that bad experience how to survive and to roll with the flow and of how God would always provide.  A bad experience but a powerfully good memory.  God used it to show that He would take care of us no matter what.

Erwin shares, “What has happened to us is not nearly as powerful or as formative as our interpretation of why it happened. Our most destructive emotions, such as bitterness and forgiveness, root deeply into the human soul not because of what happened to us but because we haven’t resolved the issues of why. Why would someone hurt you? Why would someone betray you? Why would God allow this?”

I am so thankful that God gave me parents who knew God and knew that He could be trusted and that He would take care of us.

Connie, my sister and I were with mom a few weeks back celebrating her 90^th bd.  It was such a special time.  On our last night together we were reminiscing about our time together and Connie and I both shared with mom of how we loved our life.  Yes, we didn’t always have our own house but we always had a home and we loved it.  Some bad experiences, sure but a whole lot of good memories.

What are you holding on to?