Cindy K. Sproles is an author and a speaker, whose dream is to do nothing more than craft words that speak from the heart. God's plan seems to be for her to write and teach the craft. With God’s guidance, Cindy is expanding her horizons. We'll see how He uses her.
Cindy is a mountain gal. Proud of her heritage, she was born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains where life is simple, words have a deep southern drawl, and colloquialisms like, "well slap my knee and call me corn pone" seem to take precedence over proper speech. Apple Butter, coal mining, the river, pink sunrises, and golden sunsets help you settle into a porch swing and relax. Family, the love of God, and strong morals are embedded into her life in the mountains. Teaching writers, spinning fiction tales about life in the mountains, history, and down-home ideas find their way into all she does. “I love to write devotions, to seek after the deeper side of Christ, and to share the lessons He teaches me from life in the hills of East Tennessee. I am a writer. A speaker. A lover of God's Word and friend to all.” This is Cindy Sproles. Welcome home to the mountains.
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I recently saw a post on Facebook that asked the somewhat profound question: Do you look back?
At first, I scoffed at such a silly post, citing that the question was senseless. I passed by it, not giving it a second glance. However, the question hung in the back of my mind. Do you look back?
That question bugged me for a couple of weeks. Every time I scrolled through my feed, there it was. It didn’t seem to have shares or likes attached, so apparently, others felt like I did—a senseless question. But if it was so pointless, why did it pester me?
Mom will turn 98 this month. Ninety-eight! Holy cow. She can feasibly hit 100 years old with her excellent health. She’s active and happy. In fact, we just had a doctor visit where the doctor told her she hoped she would be as fortunate as Mom to be this healthy when she hit 98.
I tell you that because my brother and I are finally starting to see those little signs of aging in Mom. We’re fortunate she doesn’t have dementia or anything like it. Her mind is sound, but she is beginning to forget little things that an aging body tends to forget. Dates, a loss of a word or thought midstream, again, minor. We all have them. I walk into a room and have to stand there a minute to remember why I went to the trouble to go into that room. You relate, right?
So, on the way to take Mom home after her appointment, we drove past a motel that was being demolished. “Oh, you remember the people that owned that. They led your Girl Scout troop and then offered it to you to be the leader. You told them only if you could move up each year with your girls in the troop.”
“Mom, what are you talking about? I’ve never been a Girl Scout leader. I have four boys.”
And there it was—a blank stare. Mom didn’t have a clue. I waited before I said anything else. In a second, she waved her hand at me and said, “Never pays to look back, does it?” She laughed and reminded me it was her who had the troop. The memory was hers, not mine.
It seems that for most of us, looking back is not always fun. For the life of me, I don’t understand why our first recalled memories are less than pleasant. Seems we must swim through a river of floating baggage before we get our feet on the dry land of happy memories.
For me, there are lots of happy memories that I’ve recalled zillions of times: friends, fun, Christmases past. But the memories that come back most vividly are the ones with my boys. The shocking thing is my boys don’t always remember things the same way I remembered them. I could probably debate the memory of giving birth with one son, and he’d swear it wasn’t the way I remembered it. The kid probably remembered his first thoughts at birth (If anyone could remember that, it would be him.)
For instance, the Prince and I went to Universal with our adult sons a few years back. My boys know I hate roller coasters, but they also know that I ride them, not for the love of the coaster, but because I want the experience with them. Cameron and I frequently debate the Universal trip and my riding “The Hulk” roller coaster. You see, I distinctly remember being catapulted out of a long tube, glaring lights on either side of me and shooting out into the daylight, into a loop-de-loop, at which point the coaster suddenly came to a halt as we were coming down one side of the loop. I REMEMBER hanging sideways, hardly able to breathe.
My son says, “No, Mom, we weren’t hanging sideways.” For the record, my recollection is yes, we were, but again, one of those times, it doesn’t pay to look back.
All this is to say that we spend too much time living in what was instead of what is. So, the adage, there’s a time and place for everything, rings true. There are times when we need to pull from our past and recall. Sometimes, it’s a sweet memory, a necessary need, or simply to reminisce, but other times, things need to stay in the past. You know, never look back.
As I face more time behind me than in front of me, I’m learning that the past baggage that wants to seep to the top of my memory list is less important than the joy I have since the bags floated down the river and over the falls. Suddenly, that Facebook post made a little more sense. Do I spend my time looking backward, or do I turn and face the future and all of its excitement and, yes, probably some rough spots?
I hope I will find fun in the adventure of what will come and not waste my time dragging those bags back up the falls. Let ‘em go. There’s nothing in them worth having. The memories enclosed there are rough, torn, and sharp. Do I need them? Nope.
So, I pose the question to you to seriously ponder for yourself. Do you look back?
Photo 1 - Image by Joe Murphy from Pixabay/ Photo 2 - Image by Connor Johnson from Pixabay/ Photo 3 - Image by Grégory ROOSE from Pixabay