Memories
For several years now, it’s been in the back of my mind to write and reflect on my life and story – whether just for my own self, or possibly as a way to share with my children some day, I don’t know. It’s come to mind from time to time, and after Sunday’s sermon, and invitation, I decided to start on it myself. I mean, maybe God’s speaking in echoes, and it would be valuable for me to do it too, right?
If you missed Sunday’s sermon and don’t know what I’m talking about, we began a series on some Questions that Jesus asks and took a look at Mark 5:21-34, when an un-named woman’s bleeding is stopped by touching Jesus’ robe… and how he asks “Who touched me?” – as a way to acknowledge her and to help her name her pain. The invitation is the same for us – to name our own pain and in the process, bringing it to the light of God’s love, to be healed, transformed and restored. It takes work, but I believe the invitation is there from Jesus… so I decided to do some of that work myself.
I started by jotting down as many things from my childhood as I could remember – not the entire story, just the idea or event. After I get through that for my forty-seven years (yikes, that’s gonna take some time) – I plan to go back and jot down the story, as best as I can recall it, from those situations. It’s actually been quite a trip, to take myself back to places and times, and try to collect as many memories from those as possible. One memory sparks another from a different time or place, but is somehow connected. I think I’ve captured just about all the things that happened then or there, and then something else is sparked and a new bunch of memories flow out.
When I look back at the 100+ memories from the first quarter or so of my life that I quickly jotted down, I definitely notice some painful moments. Like the loss of my family of origin to divorce. It’s a grief that still carries weight, but not nearly as much as it did at one time. God has done great healing and restoration in our lives in that area.
But more than any single painful moment or memory… what stuck out to me the most is the ratio of these to the benign or truly joyful memories. When I take into account all of them that have some degree of pain – from my parents’ divorce all the way down to misplaying a grounder and not making my grade school baseball team – it’s a nearly 9:1 ratio of good memories to the painful ones!
I don’t know that I would have caught that, had I not taken the time to remember and reflect on all of them. Sure, we are invited, just as the woman who touched Jesus’ robe, to tell our story, to name our pain before Jesus, who is paying attention to us – but it is for the sake of our restoration. And that restoration happens, in part, as we reframe our story to put the pain in its proper place – not hidden, where it takes up an inordinate amount of space and energy – but in the light of God’s love, where it can be placed alongside all the other beautiful memories and blessings we have received.
I plan to keep doing this story and memory work over the coming days and weeks, as long as it takes, and I invite you to do it as well. Again, not just as a way to dwell on the negative, but in order to have it redeemed and restored. What I’ve found, is that by bringing it to light, I can do what Paul encourages in his letter to the Philippians. Because I’m not spending energy trying to hide it, I can actually spend my time and energy, I can think on all those true, noble, pure, lovely, admirable and praiseworthy things that God has done in me and in us!
Welcoming You to Grow in Jesus – one memory at a time,
Pastor Don