This do in Remembrance - (A story that remains untold is no story at all)

I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do. (entire hymn - by Katherine Hankey, 1866 - posted below)

The 1920 Alexander/Maul/Campbell Rocker 

It's a simple thing, really. A grandmother and a baby sitting in a chair. But it's so much more when there's a story attached. The rocking chair in question is one of a pair we were only willing to split up when Naomi was expecting. It's around 90 years old, and was first rocked when David Henry's great-great grandmother Mary (Mary Roquemore Alexander) started having babies in the 1920's.

The pair of rockers (or should I say "Roquers") was the first furniture purchase made after Reed Alexander married his oh-so-young bride around 1920 in Athens Georgia.

When we gave the roquer to Naomi and Craig it had at least two sets of tooth marks on the arm. The first was imprinted when Rebekah's dad, Bob Alexander, chomped the furniture in the vicinity of 1926. Almost 60 years later, either 1982 or '83, Andrew Maul added his own mark. Any damage perpetrated by Rebekah and her four siblings remains, at this time, undocumented.

Mary Alexander holding Robert D. Alexander, circa 1926

There is a lot of love in that strong rocker. It was, to be honest, hard for me to see it go. It was the right thing to do, of course, but I have so many tender memories of holding Andrew, and then Naomi, as they fell asleep in my arms. I'd keep the rhythm going, back and forth,long after they were heavy into their slumber, unwilling to leave the pure and blessed beauty of the moment.

Some of the best family times are built around that kind of remembering. We may have photographs, and digital recordings, and pictures both still and video, but the best way to remember is still in the sitting around and the telling of stories. Annotated, of course, by "corrections," "interpretations," "slants," "additions" and "addendums," from those sharing in the telling.

Family history is best when it's a shared story. That's what we've been doing this year at First Presbyterian Church of Brandon, as we celebrate 50 years as a family of faith. It's been an all-year-long invitation to share the ongoing story, and to testify as to what God has been up to in Brandon because there's a Presbyterian Church here.

Always sharing the story

We're at our best and the most engaged with the Gospel we've been entrusted with when we gather in small groups and when we share. We tell the truth about God's family of love when we share our faith, our questions, our struggles, our enthusiasm, our doubts, our triumphs, our growth and our belief; when we share our experiences of God and our need for God; when we pray together and pray for one another; when we celebrate and when we cry.

We've been doing all of that here recently, and we're the richer for it. Fact is, a story that remains untold is no story at all.

- DEREK

I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.
I love to tell the story, ’twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story; more wonderful it seems
Than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story, it did so much for me;
And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.
I love to tell the story; ’tis pleasant to repeat
What seems, each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story, for some have never heard
The message of salvation from God’s own holy Word.
I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song,
’Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.