When I Look Back

Looking back over the years, thoughts come rushing back like a river. Sometimes they drift by in a comforting stream, while at other times they swirl by like a flooding river. I do know that the years of my life have rushed by and all that now remain is a small trickle. I think that is why I write down thoughts as they occur. Stupidly as I lived at home, I didn’t listen to the stories my parents, Carl and Sybil Miner Beck would tell me of their lives and the lives of my ancestors and relatives. Like most people, I believed my parents would live forever. Not so, and now I regret that thought. I’ve seen other people’s posts where someone would ask, “If you could tell your younger self anything, what would you tell him?”

I’m not sure that I would tell myself anything. I didn’t listen to others. What makes me think I would listen to an older me? The saying I now believes fits is, “The difference in doing dumb things as a kid and now in that I have to do them more slowly.” I still do dumb things and the ones I can remember of them, I regret. Honestly, can anyone think that telling your youthful self would change anything?

As sometimes happens, my blog wanders off down a rabbit trail and I never get to write about the original thought. I was going to share the most vivid memories of the tenting trip our church group and family made out West about forty years ago, but was sidetracked into this rambling about what might have been. The floodwaters of recollection has again changed the channel of the river and given it a new course and it flows into the ocean of eternity. I guess the major bumps in my life would be waterfalls in the map of my history. Few things can cause a river to flow backwards, even for a few minutes, so life flows on. Grab a paddle and move on. Try to avoid the rapids and toss out a lifeline to those we see struggling. Use the Christ as your anchor and His Word, the Bible as your chart.