There are so many beautiful places in the world. But the best places are spent in the company of the people you enjoy connection with, and they become the best memories.
My best memories are in my kitchen with friends, a park in Paris with strangers, a supermarket shopping isle having bumped into a friend, a carpark where I met one of my favourite people, the church door frame where I stood with my dad before I got married and he waltzed me down the isle, and the birthing pool bringing my son into the world!
What are your favourite places? What are some of your best memories? How does connection and meaning play a role in them?
I think back over what my favourite places were at different points in my life. Many of them are places that I’ve lost. My homes, a car I really enjoyed driving, places I travelled to. Some places can be figurative – career achievements and turning points, marriage, relationships, friendships. All of them are places, in a sense. Places where we live and grow and are shaped by, but they all pass into time.
Those places don’t have to be sad because they carry a sense of loss. Our memories say a lot about the people we’ve become because of those ‘places of being’ that established us in various ways.
I remember someone saying to me that he was defined in a good way by the bad things his dad had done. It was a choice he made that called him to turn negative experiences into positive behaviour for himself.
The joy of where we are, what we have, or who we're with are all dependent on the meaning we share and the memories of strength we’re able to carry with us. Being able to be shaped and to choose to shape our selves, our lives, our children, each day, in a way that is beautiful and lasting is what makes it meaningful and rewarding, even if our experiences may be painful.
Romans 12:18 (MSB)
If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.
Psalm 149:4 (BSB)
For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He adorns the afflicted with salvation.
Psalm 37:4 (GNT)
Seek your happiness in the LORD, and he will give you your heart's desire.
Job 36:11 (ESV)
If they listen and serve him, they complete their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasantness.
Psalm 16:11 (ABPE)
You will show me your path of life and I shall be full of the joy of your face and of the sweetness of the victory of your right hand.
(NLT)
You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.
(NASB)
You will make known to me the way of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
The most lasting, meaningful life we can live, with or without precious things, people, life experiences, loss or reward, is in the presence of Jesus, under the shade of His extended arm, His loving heart, the attention of His gaze, the direction of His Holy Spirit.
It’s then that peace comes.
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