The Strength of a Memory
By Bill Shepard
Never underestimate the strength of a memory.
It often does what nothing else can! There are many stories that lend credence to that statement. It has been said that a boy or girl will leave their home in the country, move to the city, work all their young years to earn and save enough money to buy their old home place in the country. Memories call them back to the place of their beginning. Some might call it the “homing instinct.”
Bill Shepard
Memories of home have played a part in the lives of many runaways who found themselves far from home. I have read and heard stories told by some who decided to see what lay on the other side of the mountain. All the persuasion, counseling, even praying could not prevent their leaving, but a memory of a good home overtook them and they were homeward bound!
There is a beautiful story in the Bible that Jesus told about a young boy who had wanderlust in his shoes. What young boy hasn’t experienced that feeling at sometime in their young years? We are not told a lot of details about that story, but we are told enough to know its ending, and some happenings along the way. Friendless, broke, and hungry, the boy too a job feeding the hogs! We are told that he was so hungry that he was about to eat the food that was meant for the swine! At that moment, a memory appeared. Memories have a way of showing up uninvited, and unexpected but often just in time. He remembered the good home and loving family he had let behind. The strength of that memory turned his feet in an homeward direction! The story has a happy ending; back home he found the door open and a beautiful homecoming was in the making. If there is a lesson to be learned, here it is for the parents. While your children are growing up, instill in them good memories of home. You never know what the future may hold; there can be a lot of winding roads ahead! Provide your children with good memories and keep your door open!
Note: Memories of a loving family, made when I was a child, have followed me through my long journey. I may have never reached the pig-pen, but I was close enough to smell the stench!
