Full and Abundant Life

 

I recently took a drive up to Little Rock to visit with my big brother. It had been too long. On the way, I stopped to see our childhood home. Well, I stopped to see where our childhood home USED to be. The little frame house that my father built for his family, the only home I ever knew until I left home after high school and began life on my own, burned a few years ago. Now all that is left is the lot.

I could still see where the driveway ran, and the huge Holly tree still stands in what was once the front yard. The towering Hickory tree that stood at the back door remains, strong and true. I even found the concrete cap on the old well that my daddy still used to water the lawn for as long as he lived. It was an empty lot, but it seemed so full of memories.

I could see the house, complete with front porch and screen door. I could see all the cars our family drove throughout my life. I could see us all, at every stage of life, going about our wonderful and simple life. I could see my cousins visiting for the summer and I smiled at the joy that such images brought to me, though I had moved away over 40 years ago. Yes, the lot is empty to everyone else, but it still seems full to me.

One of the powerful things about life is that there are moments and places where the past and the present meet. This can be a painful experience, bringing to the surface memories that hold fear or violence or great loss. This can be a wonderful experience, bringing us back to happy times and places and faces. Some of us have more of one than the other. Most of us, across the years, end up with both. Such is life.

William Faulkner wrote, ”The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.” All of our life experiences travel with us. The good news is that God, in grace, redeems all of of us and all of our life. The happy and sad, the good and bad. Those experiences we are most proud of and those which bring us shame. All are redeemed. We are not left alone in any of it.

Jesus said, ”The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” To have full and abundant life is to live in an awareness that all of life is touched by God and changed by grace and love.

Peace.