Valued memories

In Belva Plain’s novel “Legacy of Silence” a main character is dying from a melanoma. As she takes her daughter for a walk, she thinks, “Oh, I remember so much and still so little. You wish you could recall everything, every hour of precious life, but all you can ever retrieve are moments, some so beautiful that they bring tears, and others so dreadful that you must strain to stop your tears . . .”

I stopped and read these words again, twice, and felt the same poignant wish, the same longing to be able to remember all of life vividly. Perhaps this touches me because wanting to remember is part of getting older, or because this very day I’m going to become a great-grandmother. It might be because I’m a person who lives in the moment, and these words make me wish I’d spent more time musing the past.

Remembering is important. God told His people to remember all that happened since it was their history with Him. In Acts 7:1-16, Stephen remembered. He speaks to the Jewish religious leaders who have arrested him beginning with, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there . . . “

He continues with their story to show how they had resisted the will of God throughout history, and now had killed the One He had sent to save them from their sin. Of course they were enraged for they still did not want to admit they needed saving.

That helps me this day to remember the importance of the story—the story of God revealing Himself to man throughout history, the story of Jesus coming to earth to die for our sins, the story of how He revealed Himself to me even, and how He changed my life. I might forget much of the events of life. I might even suffer from dementia as I age, like my mother who had Alzheimers. But the details of life pale in their importance compared to His story that God has planted in my heart.

I think of an aunt whose memory loss robs her of names, faces, life’s events. But she remembers that God is sovereign, that Jesus died for her sins. She forgets almost everything else but remembers the thing most precious. It is planted deep in her heart.

Even as I reread Belva Plain’s words I feel a sense of loss in that we cannot remember all of life even if we want to or have sharp minds. Yet I realize that the most precious truths will be part of who I am forever. That is because God put them there, and as 2 Corinthians 4 says, “Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”

I know that even should my memories be lost, God never forgets those who are His. He will never leave me or forsake me, and He affirms that neither age or forgetfulness can undo what He does in my spirit.