I can remember fondly childhood gatherings of almost each branch of our family.
Kids playing every imaginable game in the yard – hide and seek, tag, baseball, and any other activity that would keep us occupied while the adults gathered telling jokes and laughing.
I have come to the conclusion that everyone in life, no matter how blessed, finds that there are trials we must face.
Sometimes these are the common trials that everyone faces in life – How do we pay a bill? Where do I find a job? How do I cope with the stresses?
Sometimes they are more monumental. In just the last week, I have prayed for friends and loved ones and their caregivers that are facing heart by-pass surgery, Parkinson’s disease, accident recovery, cancer in various stages, and stroke.
One of my favorite people to see, hear and be around as a youth was comedian/singer Wendy Bagwell.
Well, not just as a youth, I still enjoy hearing his wonderful stories that amused and his music with the Sunliters – Jan Buckner and Geraldine Morrison that uplifted.
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In life, we are constantly faced with choices. We are blessed or cursed with the gift of free will, depending on your prospective.
From the smallest detail of “Do you want fries with that?” to “Do you take this woman to be…?,” in America, we have endless choices.
I found myself in yet another conversation with one of my fellow entertainers recently discussing what we will be selling, as the future becomes the present.
Many performers sell their own products at concerts including CDs and DVDs, that fans buy and often hand to us to receive an autograph.
I watched this string of youth all under eight-years-old, their hands behind their backs and their faces buried in a green and yellow watermelon rind resting on a white table. They only stopped long enough to spit a seed. Each was trying to win the title and the prize in the contest. This was shortly after hearing the sirens blare, seeing the flags wave as people paraded down main street smiling at friends and those they didn’t even know.
As I stood upon a chair hearing my friends play outside, I just knew that I was going to miss something.
Every fall, I always knew that some of my time would be spent standing on a chair as my mother knelt with straight pins gripped in her mouth measuring the cuffs in my new pants. I know I drove her crazy fidgeting as she tried hard to make them just right. Without failing, she would eventually take the pins from her mouth, look up at me and say “Can’t you stand still for just a minute?”
This past weekend I thought I was over the worst of dealing with several days of fever with no other symptoms.
Of course, I had committed to be in North Carolina, so I crawled in the car and away I went praying for the strength to do His work. Thankfully He did, getting me there and back and giving me the ability to do the show. It just reinforced to me the old adage, the show must go on. People are often impressed by the glamour they think makes up such a large portion of a performer’s life.
Have you ever wondered who your walk each day impacts. Are you a leader in your community or your church? How about in your family?
Do you set the pace that everyone else follows?
“Where have all the people gone?” is a question that I often find myself discussing as I visit with other musical performers and event promoters.
What they mean is where are those who once came and filled the seats in a thousand seat auditorium and helped the promoters make enough money to pay the entertainers, so they could pay their staff, fill the bus with diesel and move on to the next town.
