Memories

by a lion at Bryan on Saturday

A wedding of friends on Saturday took us back to Dayton, TN, and since we had left freakishly early (3 a.m.), we got in with plenty of time to eat a leisurely breakfast at Cracker Barrel and stroll the campus of Bryan College, for old time's sake.  

The Southeastern Family Conference, hosted by our church down here and held at Bryan College in TN was the highlight of our summer, maybe even year, for years while I was growing up.  There were just a few families from our church in NY who usually traveled all the way to TN each year; mine was one of them and John's was one of them.  At the time, he and I meant nothing to each other (at least as far as John's knew ;-) ), but now we have many common memories to share and love. 

I remember my Dad remarking on how he'd never spent so much money on a vacation before.  Many average-looking dads similarly stood in line at registration every year and wrote out checks for several hundred dollars, to stay in college dorms and share common bathrooms and listen to three preaching sessions a day for an entire week.  In a sleepy little town in Tennessee in the middle of the hot summer.  Someone who'd never been could easily have called us crazy.

But, for a dad who spent every long week day among non-Christians, worshiping among 600 like-minded Christians every day for a whole week was like a little taste of heaven.  It was true for me, also, as a home-schooled girl without very many friends and later as a public school student.  Our church in NY is small by most people's standards, and even just singing with that many people was an experience.  

Then, one year, we had to miss the conference because it conflicted with my sister's final exams.  After that, money was a bit tighter since Mom and Dad were helping me to pay for college.  It turns out that many other families must have had stories like ours, because in the next couple of years, the attendance dwindled, and eventually the conferences were stopped, as you may already know.

The family conference always used to be during the first week in July, so it was especially neat that the wedding brought us back right during what used to be conference time.  Neater still, it was at the conference thirteen years ago (July 2, 1997) when I was finally humbled to the point of desperation.  After years of asking God for salvation, I didn't know if I was already saved or not--all I knew was that I needed to trust Christ now.  I remember going to sleep that night with a sigh of peace, and He has always been faithful to me since.  

Thirteen years ago.  That means that I've now been a Christian for half my life.  It's a sobering thought; my knee-jerk reaction is to ask what do I have to show for myself?  I know that it's not me, but hopefully the Spirit working within me, but can I trace His on-going sanctifying work, or am I stuck in a rut?  Am I as mature as a spiritual 13 year old?