Searching for Life Moments

Don't know about you all, but on occasion I try to "remember" life moments.  When people are with you, you don't think about this much. But when they leave you, you find yourself at times trying to remember their likes, love, smells, voice and times together.  Memories at this time are all we have. So for me, I will return to places where I had great times together with people. I learned to golf with my dad. In many ways my most fond memories were on golf courses together.


I was out playing one of those courses alone this last week. I chose to only walk 9 holes since it was in the mid 90's and instead put my gear away and took my ipod and walked over to a fairway we played 100 times. #10 at Columbia. Dogleg right par 4 that we both regularly put drives into the right woods on :)


The photo above was taken as I sat under a tree watching 4somes play through for a few hours.
It is here, here where life moments are remembered.
His smell, his laugh, his gate, his swing, his precious softness and his desire to just play like he used to when "he" was a kid playing this course. Hmmmm. (Big smiles and a few tears over just those thoughts.)  And there it is. All worth it right there. Those emotions are all we have left and we should do what ever it takes to keep them.   So I keep going back.


So is this why we try to have "moments" with the ones we love.. because someday we can only hope they will drive distances to be places where we gave them moments to conjure up their past memories of who we were? No.. but it does matter, and we should do it .. and do it regularly with those we love.


Funny how the drive to succeed can rob us of those times and moments. And for many it's too late to go back.  One of my dearest friends was hit by a car years back and was told he was probably going to die from internal injuries. The doctor said "if you have a phone, u best begin calling those you love and say goodbye and make peace". Hmmm. I can't forget that he said to me, that he opened his book, and began calling those to whom he had never forgiven or still needed forgiveness from.. (let that one set in for a moment)...

sidebar....
I sit here writing on my deck in a rain storm right now... Just took this picture you see. Rain storms are one of God's greatest STEREO audio parties.. Oh my GOD I love them... and it's pouring , and rain is bouncing off the deck onto my screen here,  and lightening and thunder are crashing all around and it's GOD! and it's glorious... and... I'm Glad I have Apple Care protection :) lol


And now.. I close my eyes.   I'm in the high mountains of Yellowstone in a one man tent sucking it all in and salivating about how good my espresso will taste as soon as the rain stops and I can boil up a french press to the smells of it all, and the mud, and the O3 in the air and the smell of fires and rain.
How the heck can you not fall in love with God people. His creation and gift of the gazillion things that tweak our 5 senses that are never ending.. and all .. because He loves us... sigh..


Ok, I'm back to this post on "moments" and I'm having one right now... giggle, chuckle, tear and sigh:)


So today I ask you to think of the people you love.  What is your fondest memory of them. How can you make that stronger, bigger and more memorable for the future.


I think of my faith.  My fondest memories with the one who gave Himself for me and loves me unconditionally forever.
1. the night i asked Him into my heart as a scared 15yr old.
2. the first time I heard a "real" christian worship pop song "love song" by Love Song. Sitting in the back of Melissa Sahly's 73 green pinto, and that 8track came on, and that song, and I wept. "Oh God, there really is music out there that speaks my language about you".
3. The many times alone on the road when there was no one but "He" to talk to and have conversation with.
4. Every time I stand in a mountain river with a fly rod.
5. The look on every persons face I've ever prayed with who when we were done had that same look of "completion/peace/healing and death to life" that was on my face the first time...
6. Every time the "Word" speaks something new from and old scripture I've read a 1,000 times.


So then.. The big question...   How do we lose this and let it slip away. Let those memories fade and begin to question them. Yup it's natural, but, it's tragic.
I would surmise we just don't go back there enough and look at the mile markers and rivers and golf courses of life where we came from.


We get caught up in the "survival" game of work and all it does to rob us of those things that keep us and our relationships "alive".   The person who wrote "stop and smell the roses" was for sure a lover of  flowers cause that phrase never "got" me. But, the last lines in "A River Runs Through It"  or the end of Saving Private Ryan get me .. each . and . every  . time .


How bout you. What are your trigger points. Go re-live a few this week. Smell the whatever the heck you love to smell that makes you remember, and be thankful, and shed a tear of joy. Maybe just maybe you'll feel closer to God at the end of it all, and you'll discover in your searching, that you've found another way to worship, and that my friend.. is..  a Life Moment..