An unexpected reminder of my past.

A couple of weeks back, I was going to a memorial service in Briar Hill, for a friend of some 30 years acquaintance. As I was going from Croydon, I decided to go to Warrandyte and go across to Research and then through Eltham. (A way I know very well but hadn’t travelled for some time now.) As I was doing so, and approaching Eltham, I noticed that the main street is now a 40 KM speed zone during daylight hours and so was thinking that on the way back I would go back through Templestowe instead of returning the way I came. Then, as I was driving past a group of Shops (where I had worked in a couple, at one time or another, back in the early 70’s) I saw something that made me decide to come back through Eltham again and even stop and check things out more carefully. When I worked there, there was A BP Garage and a small group of Shops set back a little from the road on one side. Next to the Garage was a fruit shop that used to be run by Ray Ferrari and his wife until he sold the business to the (then) young son of a greengrocer, and his wife, who later sold it to the owner of the nearby Health food store. Next was a Hardware shop, Then a Butchers, a Milk Bar, a Health-food shop, and finally, a Hairdressers behind the Health-food store, but down a lane. Today, the Hairdressers is a small café, The Health-food store a Pizza Joint; The Milk Bar a Fish ‘n; chip shop, The Butchers, another Pizza joint, The Hardware store where I worked for quite a few years, is now a Thai restaurant, and The BP garage, is now the Community Centre. What was the fruit shop then, was apparently most recently a Real estate agency but now up for lease, and thus all the old signs had been removed from the front, leaving a tattered and peeling sign on the top of the Veranda that still easily reads "Parker's Fruitery”. Yes, some thirty seven years after we sold the business and it stopped being a fruit shop, our surname is once again briefly and publically on display. Just once again showing that not everything we put behind us, stays behind us and out of sight forever. Thus we should always leave a good name and reputation behind us knowing that the past can sometimes reappear suddenly and totally unexpectedly, many, many years down the track. I think that this is also a very good reminder to us as Christians too as we live in a more and more hostile world, to continue to give our best to God wherever we are and wherever we go, and not be silenced or intimidated by the world around us, knowing that we are leaving a good name for Christ, behind us both now and in the years to come should Christ continue to tarry. What say you?