Memories
Memory is a funny thing.
Have you ever told a funny story from your childhood, only to have your sister interrupt: “That’s not how it happened.” And she proceeds to retell the whole story, but you know she’s wrong and you’re right.
I know I’m not the only one who has walked into the kitchen and can’t remember what I wanted in there. Or looked at the class of girls you’ve been teaching for years and called one of them by the wrong name. If you have kids you probably do it to them, too. For most of my life my Mom would call me RonJoyann (Ron being my brother’s name).
On a more serious note, we all have or had family members suffering from memory loss, whether due to dementia or Alzheimer’s or stroke. This is the most devastating of all memory loss. I’ve written a few articles regarding my experiences with caregiving my mom who suffered a stroke.
You can read them here:
https://joyanndwire.com/blog/the-story-of-the-dead-dog
https://nowwhat.cog7.org/two-is-the-loneliest-number/
https://nowwhat.cog7.org/support-for-the-caregiver/
The topic of this article is a little more lighthearted though.
Here is a vivid memory I’ve had ever since I was four or five years old. My Dad worked for PennDot’s highway department. Somehow in the course of his work he got turned around in a forest and was lost. Over the years it never occurred to me to wonder how someone who worked on HIGHWAYS could get lost in the woods, but there you are.
I vividly remember riding in the car as we drove the country roads through the forest. Every so often my mom and older brother would stop, get out of the car and call for Dad. There were other people involved in the search, but my childish mind wasn’t interested in them.
I remember we would return home (again there were other people there lending support). We waited around until the phone rang, and we would go out again to search the area the person on the phone recommended. One of those phone calls came while I was sitting on the porch steps with my pet chicken, and my brother came out with the news that someone saw Dad. By the way, I DID have a pet chicken. Well, maybe a kind-of-pet chicken. I have the scar on my face to prove it.
At some point we apparently found Dad, though I have no memory of that event. Anyway he showed up back home, so someone found him.
Perhaps you noticed some of the flaws in my memory. I’ve questioned a few of these things over the years, but I always wrote it off as gaps in a small child’s understanding.
As I mentioned above, there was the illogic of a highway worker getting lost in a woods only a mile away from our house. And it was a woods, not a forest -- the trees didn’t stretch endlessly. They were woods located on a variety of private properties. Theoretically if he had walked far enough in any direction he should have come out at someone’s house or onto a road. At most he could have been lost for a day. Certainly not the three or four days of my memory.
I also puzzled over the phone calls. Who made them? Why did they call? And if they thought they had seen Dad, why didn’t they pick him up or call out to him instead of going home and calling us (those were the days before cell phones, remember.)
I spent most of my adult life with this memory. One day my brother and parents were sitting in the kitchen, and I decided to ask about the incident.
“Remember when Dad got lost in the woods?”
Three sets of eyes were fixed on me.
“What are you talking about?” my brother asked.
So I shared the memory with them, but even as I spoke and saw the expressions on their faces I began to doubt myself.
They were unanimous in their declaration that none of it had happened. I was stunned. The memory was so real to me that here I am still able to tell the story some fifty years later.
The only explanation I have for it is that I dreamed the whole thing. Possibly it was a recurring dream which would explain why I remembered so much about it.
Or maybe I slipped into an alternate universe . . . .
I was going somewhere with this blog. . . Oh yes, now I remember.
As we go into this new year we leave behind memories of the old. Some of those memories we may want to leave behind. The car repairs. The water leak that did a lot of damage to your house. The job you lost. The broken leg or long-term illness. The loved one who passed away.
There are other memories you may want to hold on to. Your daughter’s beautiful wedding. The birth of a child or grandchild.
But even the bad memories have elements that you want to hang on to. The old job you hated turned into a new job that you love. Throughout your illness you were able to feel the peace and presence of the Lord, and if you recovered you have even more reason to praise the Lord. You were able to afford your car repairs through God’s provision. And the memories of those final days with your loved one, though they were painful, are a time you want to cling to as part of your memory of that loved one. And of course you want to hold dear the memories of the life that loved one lived. Recall their funny quirks. Tell the crazy thing they used to do. Repeat the sayings or the stories they were known for.
What should we remove from our memories? Forgiven sin. We’ve all sinned, and if we haven’t received Jesus into our hearts and lives that’s the first step to take towards forgiveness.
Once God has forgiven you, rest assured that He has removed your sin as far as the east is from the west, and He remembers it no more (Psalm 103:12).
Satan loves to remind me of the stupid things I’ve done in my life. He’s called the accuser of the brethren in Revelation 12:10. But we have a greater advocate before the Father - our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:34).
As we go into the New Year, let’s have selective memory. Let’s be like Paul in Philippians 3:13-14 and put the past behind us. Instead let us focus on the memories of God’s blessings in 2023, and look forward to what He wants to do in us and through us in the future.
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