Certain dates just resonate with us and we remember what we were doing on that day. I remember turning on the TV on the morning of September 11th twenty years ago and seeing what was happening in New York. I remember just standing there in my living room that Tuesday unable to pull myself away. Or another event about fifteen years previous to that always stays in my memory. There I stood in front of a TV and saw the replays of the Challenger blowing up. It was at the student center at Abilene Christian University an hour before I was to go meet three professors and take my oral exams for my Master’s Degree. And going back over fifty years, I remember my family was at some friend’s house, watching with millions of others on TV, as Neal Armstrong made “one small step for man.” Certain dates just have significance to us.
I remember November 4, 1982, like it was yesterday. I got up and walked the four to five blocks from my apartment to my office in the Atmospheric Science department at Texas Tech University. I had my class that morning and then taught an undergraduate meteorology class that afternoon. I went and visited with a guy named Charles for a couple of hours on my way back to my apartment before having dinner with my roommate, Paul. It was a Thursday night and there was a JV football team of sorts for the university that was playing that night, so a fellow sports nut and graduate meteorology student from upstate New York and I headed off to the game. I can recall a lot of details of this day, that I don’t remember specifically for other days.
Then something happened at the football game. No, it wasn’t a bolt of lightning that struck me, though it was involving weather. A “Blue Norther” came through. It was what they called a rapidly moving cold front with much colder air behind it. That night it came roaring through Lubbock. We decided, hey it is just a JV game, not worth staying out here being cold, so we left and I ended back at my apartment. After I got home from the football game, I decided to do some reading.
Now, reading wasn’t surprising since graduate school seemed to involve a lot of reading. But this reading was a little different from my normal studying and I remember exactly what I read. The guy I had visited with earlier, Charles, had suggested that I read it. You see, he was the campus minister of the student center I had walked into a couple of months earlier and after our visit, he suggested that I read the first twelve chapters of Acts. Since I was home early from the football game, might as well take the time to read.
After reading this, I called Charles up, it was around 9:30 that night. A half-hour later I met him along with a couple of dozen students, most of whom I did not know at the time, at the church building. I had my sins washed away in the obedience of baptism and changed the course of my eternal destiny. I remember the date well, and the day like it was yesterday, so I celebrate it yearly. Think back to the day you made your commitment to Christ and take a minute to celebrate!
Celebrating the date,
Randy