Orange Moon "More Than Memories"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

 

  "More Than Memories" 

    

   We lose much during our earthly lifetime in a fallen world.  Be it things, places, opportunities, abilities, health, or most importantly, people, our present lifetime involves the challenging reality that "the world passeth away" (I John 2:17). 

 

   This serves as a primary reason God made us with the capacity for gratitude and thanksgiving.  We cannot literally relive the blessings of the past.  What is gone is gone.  We can, however, determine to remember wonderful experiences with heartfelt appreciation for the Giver of "every good gift and every perfect gift" (James 1:17).  Something sublime graces our hearts when we take journeys to the past not simply to recall, but to remember with thanksgiving.  I like to call such recollections and their accompanying prayers "more than memories."  

 

    What if some friend of the past, long departed, was actually a gift of God used to help make us the person we are?  He or she was.  What if a happening that brought happiness originated not merely as good fortune, but as our Lord's good gift to our hearts?  It did.  What if a cherished place of the past was especially formed for us by our Heavenly Father to play a significant role in leading us to our truest home, namely, His heart?  That was the case.  And what if the capacity for memory that enables us to function during our present earthly lifetime even more enables the Heavenly capacity for honoring our Lord by rejoicing in His wondrous generosity? It does.

 

   God made us with the marvel of memory as the expression of His astonishing capacity for engineering.  "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14).  Perhaps even more, however, He made the marvel as the great Artist He is, filling our journeys to yesterday with beauty as we remember with appreciation, gratitude, and thanksgiving.  "I will remember the works of the Lord.  Surely I will remember Thy wonders of old" (Psalm 77:11).   Long-departed gifts of God abide in our hearts when memories become altars whereupon we offer gratitude and become more than memories.

 

"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

(I Thessalonians 5:18)

 

Weekly Memory Verse

    "But I trusted in Thee, o Lord.  I said, Thou art my God."

(Psalm 31:14)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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