On Remembering

Remembering is a funny thing. For an example, I read a book not too long ago that prompted me to go back through my early childhood and think of all the memories I have from before I was 10. It was an interesting exercise.

I grew up for my first seven years on a mountaintop in Alabama. So I was going through memories. The good and the bad, and everything was tinged a bittersweet. Now, this was weird, cause I have great memories of climbing down to the waterfall on my Grandfathers property, laying in the ferns with my older sister, and many other wonderful childhood memories.

But it was all bittersweet. Then I got to the memory of hearing that we would be moving. And I cried myself to sleep. I had no idea that had affected me that much.

And this is the case with a lot of things in our lives. Unless we actively go back and actively remember our story, from childhood on, we will miss a lot. This reaction to the memory of moving made sense of many things. Why everything before 8 was bittersweet, why I had stress headaches at 10. This was a part of my story that I was missing, and having that piece helped make sense of other pieces that hadn't made sense.

It's not just things like moving either. A lot of what we need to remember is how God has interacted with us in the past. What he's done throughout our lives. I need to remember that day in 2007 where I was at the end of my rope with my headaches, and God held me as I cried. For the first time I knew God was good. If I were to forget that experience, I would be missing a piece of my story, and things would go out of focus.

And it's not just our stories either. We need to remember God's story with his people at large. His story with Israel in the old testament, with the church in the new, with the church throughout history. It's no wonder that God tells Israel to remember so often. If they forget what God has done in their history, they will not live in a way that makes sense. They will not be able to make sense of their part in the story. It'd be like having to act a part in the second act without knowing what had happened in the first. You're not going to get it.

The funny thing about remembering, though, is that in spite of my ability to call up many facts about my past, it's hard to remember the emotion and meaning oftentimes. And that's what shapes our deeply held beliefs, our perception of past experiences...So we desperately need God and others to remind us. Remind us of who God is, what He's doing, who we are, and what we're doing in all of this.

So, I encourage everyone to remind the people in your life. Remind them of the Great Story of which they are living as a part. Remind them of God's work in the past. Remind them of the great goal we have in this life, remind them of who they've been and who God's making them to be.

Remind, remember. Cause once we can't, we're missing the most important thing: What Christ has done for us. So please, remind people when you see them, and remind yourself. We all need help in not forgetting.