In my mind, convention has three parts, all of which are very special to me. They are: anticipation of it, the reality of the four days of being there, and the afterglow, which is the memory of it.
Anticipation--convention is hardly over until we are anticipating the next one we can go to, if we live! Since our conventions are in August is this part of the world, the month of February marks the half-way point for me, and the thought of convention brings a wonderful, warm feeling to my heart when the snow is blowing around and it is very cold!
The physical preparations of the convention place begin about a month ahead of time, in anticipation of 500 people being able to come and stay for four days
. As it gets closer to the time, things come together nicely with the efforts of lots of willing people! I took this picture on the Saturday before convention of the meeting shed. We put our green cushions on the seats approximately in the center of the picture. And there we sat, listening, as the workers read from the Bible, and explained it, "gave the sense" of it, as we read in Nehemiah.So, the anticipation is finally past and we arrive for the four days of convention. We made it! And there are many, many smiling faces as we greet one another!
These are the workers who brought us so much from the Bible. Some are our local Pennsylvania workers, some from NY state, some from Ontario, one from New Zealand, one from Minnesota, two from California, and other places! So, the meetings begin on Thursday morning at 10 o'clock. There are morning, afternoon, and evening meetings for the next three days. On Sunday we have only two meetings and many people travel home afterwards. The meetings include beautiful singing (everybody sings together), a time for open prayer and a time for open testimony, plus three workers will speak a message from the Bible that has been laid upon their hearts.
In between meetings, we have a meal, some visiting, a nap if we wish, and on to the next meeting!
But what is it like to our souls? I have pictured it like this, and forgive my sense of humor about it. It's a little like a huge, warehouse grocery store. The store is like the Bible. We have a grocery cart, and God is filling the cart for us. He takes something on the shelf and says, "You need this" and puts it in our cart. And on and on we go. The cart that we started out with was empty, but it quickly fills up with the things that are going to be very important to us in the future. After four days of listening as intently as is humanly possible, we push our heavily loaded carts toward to check-out. We would like to stay in this storehouse forever because the atmosphere is so wonderful, but must go home and examine all these things that were placed in our cart, and use them in our everyday living.
Now we have reached the memory of it, which I like to call the afterglow. As we spend time with our Bibles and the notes that we took, God brings these things back into our hearts and minds. We look up the places in the Bible, and that makes us think of other places, and we turn and find new pasture there, too! The impressions made on my heart at convention are a source of strength to me for a long time to come, and even the memory of being there cheers my heart! Nothing else in my life that I have ever experienced has included a blessing in the memory of it like convention has.
Ah, convention! If you happen to be reading my blog and have never experienced it, or haven't experienced it for many years, I would invite you to come and see what it is all about!
