Photographs and Memories – Week 2
By Margaret Lackey, Concord, North Carolina

(Ordained Minister, Evangelist, Christian Comedian, Executive Assistant to Administrative Bishop, WNC Church of God State Office)

“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me’” (Luke 22:19, NKJV).

When Jesus was having His last meal with His disciples, they broke bread together. Then He told them, when you do this again, remember Me.

Life as the Lackeys have known it is catalogued in albums labeled by year.  My photos may mean little or nothing to others, but they’re invaluable to me.  They’re not just pieces of paper filed in albums; they represent our life.  Recently I was flipping through albums, startled at how quickly time had passed, how fast changes had come.  Reed’s first hair cut (the heartbreak of that day the curly red locks had to go); Christy in her Holly Hobbie dress and hat and then a lovely wedding gown (made by Nanny); our granddaughter Peyton posing as a princess, a mirrored reflection of her mother years before.  Just albums ago I was holding our grandson, Landon—now he’s taller than his Uncle Reed.

In cap and gown, Reed soon to be off from Gardner Webb to California.  God spoke to him in a campus chapel service through someone who talked about faith and trusting God with your life.  In reflection, he saw himself as a child playing in the edge of the water with his dad, Sissy and me cheering him on.  He saw Jesus out on the water bidding him to come to where He was.  “I have to go, Mom; there’s something for me to do there.”  Now the leader of Merge, an outreach of Higher Vision Church in Castaic, he recently told us he had performed his first water baptism and wedding as the ministry there continues to grow.  When that chapter is finished, God will make new assignments for new photographs.  

Life portrayed in pages of photographs and memories with family and friends:  first home, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, vacations, pastorates, baby dedications, family gatherings, ordination, Easter egg hunts, Christmas.…  An overwhelming sense of gratefulness engulfs me as I thank God for the blessings the photos represent.  Swirling like October’s leaves, they change from page to page, album to album, year to year, season to season.

I touch faces of those I love who are no longer here.  My dad, a preacher who went to heaven in 2006, enjoyed Dairy Queen.  I eat ice cream there, remember him and thank God for a dad who taught me to enjoy life’s little things.  Seeing his empty chair, I pull photographs and memories from albums and from my heart of happier days when he was laughing and enjoying life here.

Photos stored in albums are like treasures hidden in fields.  They cannot recreate holidays, weddings, celebrations and birthdays, but they remind us of the joy and promise those moments held.  We sometimes ache that we are no longer there, but remember the hope we shared in those times.  Memories of simple joys—ice cream on a summer day, a walk on the beach in spring, a picnic in autumn, winter’s snowflakes, sunrises and sunsets—come rushing back and our joy is restored.  Jesus broke a simple loaf of bread at the last meal He would eat with His disciples and urged them to never forget the ache and the joy, the promise and the hope it held.

There is pain and joy in every season, wrapped up in a gift called life filled with photographs and memories—some stored in albums, others in the heart—to be remembered again and again.

Site by WinWorld