blessings past and present

I want to interrupt my daily boring blog entries to provide some insights. While at Myrtle Beach, I was sitting on a bench on a pier when a family of 4 went by. The mom and dad didn’t resemble us at all, but there were 2 little girls that could have been 4 years apart. One was taller and slender, but the other was younger and shorter. She was a bit chubby and had longer dark hair. What was the kicker was that I had said hi to her and she kept looking back at me as they proceeded out toward the end of the pier. The older one was lagging behind because she had become fascinated by the machine binoculars that charge a quarter for a look at the scenery, this time the ocean and beach. This reminded me so much of our girls back in 1966 when we went to a beach nearby that I nearly lost my composure. I remembered what a great time we had on that trip when our girls were just like those. I nearly cried. Of course all nostalgia has its incipience in self pity because, as a previously popular song stated, “Someone left the cake out in the rain… and it took so long to make it, and I’ll never have that recipe again.” Indeed life has continued and those good times will never come again. Of course there were many other good times as well as some struggles. But while those good times and memories and little girls have gone , they have been replaced by 2 of the finest daughters/wives/mothers that could be. It is a blessing from our Lord Jesus to have them in our lives. They have just planned and pulled off one of the greatest surprises in our 50th anniversary party. Any families hardly know each other by this time in their lives, but we seem to still be close in sharing our love. It is also a greater blessing to see how they have become dedicated Christians serving others and their immediate families as well as their extended families. They have also blessed us with efforts to share the love and forgiveness of Christ with their children and others within their sphere of acquaintances. They are testimonial to the gracious love of the God of the universe. We thank God for allowing us to have them as daughters and friends.