I plan on taking my granddaughter to New York City to show her places I hung out as a child. Admittedly, many are gone. One that is gone is the Horn and Hardart Automat.
An automat was the 50's version of McDonald's. Food served in little windows where you put in your money and opened the door to get what you wanted. No throw away containers. Porcelain and steel dinnerware. I doubt the food was good but the conveyance was a marvel to a gadget-obsessed kid. Food houses! I loved loading up on a bunch of nickels and buying (usually for 25 cents) a sandwich or dessert. Ice pudding was my favorite.
Memories are powerful. They can raise the dead as well as keep us dead. They can launch us into our future or keep us living the same dreadful day over and over.
I meet far more people who need memories healed than bodies healed. Americans tend to pooh pooh bad memories that keep us from being fully human and fully alive even as we are awash in nostalgia (a false, inflated memory.)
Listen to the people in your life today who are trapped in emotional pain. You cannot fix it but Christ can heal it. Pray for them daily. If they are open, pray with them. The words don't matter, Jesus understands. Oh, and listen to stories of joy from the past. They are a gift from God to restore the soul. They heal even in the telling.
2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the exiles of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name. Psalm 147:2-4
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