There are times when I sit down to write this blog, and I wonder why I do. What force drives me to cough up a couple of hours to say things that maybe two other people read.
Writing is my voice.
I don't have a natural charisma like my younger brothers, and I don't come across well in conversations. I'm not physically attractive, so there is no reason for anyone to believe I have anything valuable to say. I'm kind of like those sparrows who keep calling out in vain for someone to pay attention to them. However, as I sit at my computer, I can imagine people nodding in approval as they read my words. I probably will never hear someone say; "Yes, David is a wise, educated man, worthy of honors far above his station in life." Nah, I don't think so.
From the time I was in the sixth grade, writing has been my release. When I was a youngster it was a release from the hurt, and anger I felt toward the mean kids who teased me day in, and day out. You would not like to read those words today. I don't even like to think that I wrote them. If I were a student today, they would have me locked away. Still, that time helped me to lay hold of my feelings, and process them. I could do all the damage I wanted in my 'fantasy' life without really hurting anyone.
Eventually, I came to accept my 'uniqueness' and find peace with the God who put that weight upon me. Yes, I blamed Him. I talked about it to Him all the time! I raged, I cried, I screamed, but most of all I wrote. Till one day, people began to read my stuff, and they liked it. WOW! What a rush! I discovered that words were powerful things. From that time forward, I've written almost every day of my life. I looked for avenues to release the words within me. I have computer files that are almost thirty years old. Now, I write out of an inner compulsion I can't explain. My time on this vale is drawing to a close. I can see the end now. It doesn't bother me other than the fear I think all of us dread which is; I don't want to be forgotten.
As part of my nature, I also like to do genealogy. There is something exciting to finding the people who made me...me. As I find a new relative in the obscurity of the past, I reach up, place my finger on their name and say; "You are not forgotten." It means something for me to do that. I have a relative from the early 1700's that no one can agree on her name. They can't find a birth date, nor any of our family tree agree on even her first name. The census taker who wrote it down, didn't have very good penmanship. Every time I stop on her name I feel a sorrow for her. She was someone's daughter, a father's joy, a mother's hope, and most of all she had dreams, and a life well lived. She bore ten children into this world, and they carried her forward with them. Yet, less than 300 years later, I can't find out with confidence who she was. She didn't write blogs, she wasn't a journalist, and she didn't do anything I know of that was of any historic value, other than making ten children. I want to be able to put my finger on her name and say; "you are not forgotten." BUT, she is. I would like to know if she was a great pie maker as many of the women are in her lineage. I would like to know if she loved her husband, my fourth great grandfather. Did she go to church on Sunday? Was she kind, and tender like my grandmother was? Did she have hopes and dreams beyond being a wife, and a mother?
There is one thing I know. Jesus said that not one sparrow falls to the ground that God doesn't know about. We can know one thing above all else, and that is if God cares for sparrows so much that He knows when they die, then if no one else remembers me, God does. He'll be there when I pass through the veil of this life into eternity, and he'll tell me; "You are not forgotten."
