Remembering - 2009

I have a couple of posts I want to do about "remembering." I have trouble remembering a lot of things anymore, and certainly pictures and other such things help with that.

This picture was put together by Facebook where I first placed it. As I reflect on the snap shots of the various things and people, I feel that I have been blest in so many ways.

I see some pictures of our immediate surroundings, the beautiful maple tree in our south lawn, the crape myrtle bush by our carport, the beautiful rose that was from some very nice bushes we have just behind our house, and the patio view I enjoyed so much last summer. There also is the very fruitful Chinese date tree near our driveway from which we, and many others, reaped a lot of very delicious dates. For all of these, and others, I am grateful. We have been given a very nice place to live and we do enjoy it.

And then there are the people. It was good to see both of the Stutzman girls again last Thanksgiving. They have grown up so quickly it seems and are now beautiful young ladies. And there's my wife, Clara, with the beautiful robe she made from scratch for our neighbor's daughter, who gave it to her daughter as a gift. I thought it was quite something, and it made me grateful for this expression of one of Clara's gifts. The other picture of her is also one of my favorites of this special person. And there's Al, one of my closest friends, and someone I can bounce anything off of and know it will be o.k. There's also one of my daughters-in-law when their family visited us last summer. Chris is a medical doctor practicing in Ohio, and I was free to solicit her expertise on some of my health concerns. And there I sit in Mervin's room listening to him explain to niece Marianne what that object was hanging on his wall - a hand corn planter. What an invention. There's also a picture of our congregation at worship during the centennial celebration we had last fall. My life is enriched in so many ways by what all of these people have contributed.

Finally I have included pictures of the 1000 word, but small, picture puzzle that our daughter, granddaughter, and my wife worked on last Christmas season when they were here. Clara needed to finish it after they were gone as they didn't get it done before they needed to leave. We enjoyed having them here very much. I have a picture of a brochure promoting a new CD being offered by Third Way Media, an arm of our denomination. It is a reproduction of many of the hymns that used to be sung by the Mennonite Hour broadcast back in the 50's. I enjoy it a lot. And finally there's a picture of the front of the book written by Roma Schmidt for our church's centennial, To Live in Christ. This book covers only the last 25 years of our church's history as another one of the first years preceded it.

And so live goes on. More memories are being made day by day. Some of these will be recorded and many will not. Some will be good, some will not perhaps. Hopefully I'll be able to catch some of the good ones on camera too.

I remain

Pilgrim on the way