I’m thinking today about the capacity to remember. With divine deliberation and unclouded foresight, the Creator chose to fashion the mind of man with memory. To be able to recollect – to re-collect images, experiences, expressions, numbers, dates, conversations, consequences, and encounters – is the champion quality of the well-functioning mind.
Maybe being around my family so much in recent days has sparked this subject in my thoughts. I cannot laugh with my daughters across the table at a restaurant without remembering them as little girls. I cannot kiss my father-in-law on his silver brow without recalling him as a man bigger than life in his mid-forties the first time Keith introduced us at a professional hockey game.
Like many of you, I have at times completely abhorred the capacity to remember. I still have flashbacks of staggering and disturbing moments in my childhood. I remember a scene in my home in my young adolescence that still causes the hair to stand up on the back of my neck. A song from the 70’s can still stir up the ache of a break up with a first love. To me, perhaps the worst of all dimensions of memory is regret. Regret is the excruciating recollection of all the decisions I could have made a different way. It’s the acrid memory that no one else assigned me. It’s mine alone to own. That I find the hardest of all. I have hated the capacity to remember so much that, at times in my life, I’ve held my head with both hands and yelled, “Stop it!”
But today I’m thinking to myself that all the torturous memories I’ve stacked up like past-due library books on the bedside table of five decades are worth the capacity to recall moments that make life on this earth worth the trouble.
Like the first time a handsome, jet-black headed young man reached across the front seat of a sports car at a stoplight and held my hand. He held it again this morning.
Like the first time I got to be all alone with a child I’d carried for nine months and I unwrapped the swaddling, leaned over her and whispered with tears dripping from my chin, “Hi there. My name is Mom.”
Like the time I took the training wheels off the smallest-ever bike and gave my baby girl a push and watched her take off down the pavement, pedaling furiously and perfectly, with blond locks of hair dancing behind her like banners in the sun. I’ve been chasing after her ever since.
Like the first time that same child threw a three-pointer. And that time I did a double-take and realized she’d shaved her legs…about 2 years too early.
Like the look on her big sister’s face when we walked outside her favorite restaurant on her 16th birthday and a new car was in the circle driveway with a large bow on it. Thanks to her grandparents who’d owned it and saved it for her.
Like this morning when I played on the swing set out here in these Texas trees with an eight year-old and a five year-old who have an uncanny resemblance to my oldest.
Like innumerable times I’ve laughed with friends until we couldn’t sit up. And prayed on our faces until we almost couldn’t get up.
I could keep going and maybe I will on my own but it would be over-indulgent here. I just want to say today that memory is a gift. An exquisite one. An excruciating one. The same capacity that invites us to replay something beautiful can recount the deplorable in startling color.
The point of this is to say that I, for one, think it’s worth it. Even with all my regrets and amid all the flashbacks. Despite all the disappointments and heart-sinking disillusionments.
To remember is among the dearest of all human capacities. A sliver of Imago Dei. Over and over on the sacred page we find the words on which we hang our hope. And God remembered.
To be thankful is, in itself, to remember.
So, today, Lord, I want to say to You that I am thankful. Because I remember. I remember the ditch You pulled me out of. I remember the hopelessness I’ve felt and the fears that I had no future. I remember a time when I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. And I remember that the sun came up the next morning and the next and the next, glistening without fail on a heap of fresh mercies. I want to say that You have been right all along. And that life is such a gift. And it is precious. And passes with such haste. What we can hope is that there would be no waste.
And, to those of us who love You, who are called according to Your purpose, You have promised that to be true.
We are grateful today, Lord, precisely because we remember.
We remember how good You’ve been to us when life has been awful.
We remember the light through the cracks in the door when we tried to lock ourselves away in the darkness.
We remember that You would not leave us alone even when we begged You to.
We remember Jesus.
We remember Him crucified. Raised. Ascended. Seated. And interceding.
Thank You, all-wise and benevolent God, for the capacity to store up collections of Your kindnesses to us through the courses of our lives.
You are good. Your love endures forever.
Help us remember.
Hi Beth:
Thank you for the eloquent points you made, the up side and down side and the gift to remember.
God showed me how He made my mind long ago to remember only when I was ready, by having the tools to handle it, the hard parts of the destruction I survived, yet to never forget a moment in time otherwise.
Memory is a double edged sword one cuts and excises the disease while the other heals it with the gift of hope always renewed because God’s hand does the work.
Here I sit on the precipice once more feeling alone and all but lost yet knowing how not alone I really am. This blog was an early Christmas present to me so as I submit to the surgical blade no matter the outcome my memories are going to be of the truth of my entire life instead of a moment feeling lost. I will think upon His hand that raised me up and His love that gave me back my life more than once; His never ending Grace and Mercy despite my human failings and miserable mistakes. I will hold fast to His promise to always give me equal to or make me better than before.
If you would please remember me in prayers because I really need someone to do this now. Whether I sit beside Him or come back better than new either way I win and my memories will forever include the depth of encouragement I’ve gained from you.
Blessings Of Love That Light The World, Aashdoda
Amen.
I have a mom upstairs right now with Alzheimer’s that lives with my husband and I that cannot remember how to put out her decorations for Christmas from her little bin of Christmas memories that I am going to go help right now. I am so thankful for her and the wonderful memories I have to hold on to when caring for her gets hard.
Thank you for sharing Beth, I have so much to remember and so much more to be thankful for.
Thank you!!!
Beautiful. Simply brilliant!
thanks for helping me remember that no matter how bad things might be today that there has been good times, fun times, and happy times, and that tomorrow will be a new day. God Bless, so THANKFUL for your words and remembering the first Bible study I did that introduced you to me. Ceffie in WV
Thank you for snapping me out of remembering what I don’t have. I have much to be grateful for including eternal life with Jesus and promises while I’m on this earth and people like you.
Love you Mama,
You are loved!!!!
Reading your blog this evening memory is a very precious thing of life. I know this to be true because my mother has Alzheimer’s. It has taken any and all memory she ever had. She is in severe stages and cannot even remember the past, which is what a lot of patients with the disease have tendency to do. Nothing she says makes sense anymore. It is one of the saddest diseases there is. So to conclude Beth memory is a gift from God and one we should never take for granted.
Sincerely,
Lisa D
I don’t know you, but I am really sorry to hear about your mother. I pray for God’s tender touch upon both of you.
Amen. This is beautiful. Thank you for this perspective, this truth. God is good to us.
Funny you mention memories. We just laid my mother to rest. She passed away on 11/25. Oh the memories of that I know cherish and hold dear. Thankful for the promise of heaven.
So sorry for your loss, praying for God’s comfort for you and your family.
Thank you for this Beth! I remember you discussing this concept (albeit slightly differently) in To Live Is Christ and it resonated w/ me so much that I made 1 Timothy 1:12-16 my life passage. Thank you for helping me see that remembering our past can be a good thing; especially as we view it thru the lens of redemption. <3
My walk seems to be so slow paced, each step forward excruciating but so much better than staying where Jesus found me. Cracks open and the infectious wound oozes pain as The Blood cleanses me from the inside out.
Remembering is not an option, only existing from moment to moment.
Jesus disagrees.
Then I chance upon your blog. I trust your walk with our Jesus. I trust your pain has been and is being healed. Your walk is more progressed by eons and light years than mine. Still you reach me through our shared love of our Jesus. I relate somehow.
I still don’t want to remember. Today though I take comfort in knowing Jesus will bring me to a place where memories can exist. Thank you.
Dear Beth,
Thank you for putting the words on a page that have been in my mind and heart. I cried throughout the entire blog. For too long and too often I’ve held onto the memories of regret and can’t seem to figure out how to get past them. Slowly, I am learning to walk in the certainty of Him rather than in my past. I’ve wanted for a very long time to remember the good things/times through childhood pictures (the few we have) to our most recent family pictures, as a way of healing. I am reminded by your post to do so. I choose to remember Him and his goodness and faithfulness. I choose to bless the Lord- oh my soul! Thank you!
Thank you so very much, Beth. A lot of my childhood memories I couldn’t remember until only recently. When they started coming back it was excruciating. But there were good memories too. And it’s only very recently that I’m able to remember them. I also have two beautiful daughters and I am so very blessed by them and their absolutely wonderful daddy. Thank you for the reminder that memories are a blessing, not a curse, which is how I so often view them.
I know for sure that we can choose to take those memories and allow God to multiply their usefulness in our lives. I remember sitting in a circle on the floor of a large semi-dark banquet room in a hotel in India with a small group of girls being taught by you, Beth. And just last week, I was reading the entries in my journal and remembering all of the things I learned on that trip – only my second time out of the country. It was just before I got married. Now…15 years later, 2 kids, and at least 10 countries later, I am still thankful for the fact that God put me in that exact place at that exact time for me to remember what it was like to need Him for my health, to rely on Him for my wisdom and strength, to trust Him to protect me from those who were opposed to the Message we brought, and to believe Him when He says we will find Him when we search for Him with all of our hearts. I’m so thankful that the memory of that time we shared is a piece of my life puzzle – a memory that makes me who I am today.
Thank you, Beth. I really needed this today. I have been struggling with regret and going over my past choices and mistakes. I lay awake at night sometimes wondering if I’m on the right path. Thank you for the encouragement. I pray for God’s peace that passes understanding. I pray that we can focus on the good memories and blessings more than the bad or hurtful ones. God bless you and your ministry. You all have poured so much into my life through your Bible studies already! To God be the glory!
Thank you Beth. My writing skills are not good, but your thoughts were so clearly penned for me. Tears of sadness and gladness flowed reading it. Thank the Lord for using you to impact so many lives.
I remember my dear Mom who is absent from the body but present with the Lord.
Dear Beth:
This post was so precious to me this Thanksgiving. Just this morning Mother asked me to help her write a note I could type up for her and make copies to put in Christmas cards. She was reading back what she had written and when she came to the word, “family” she began to cry. She still has her husband, and children and their extended family but her parents, only brother and his family have all passed away. They were all relatively young and with every holiday she feels the pain of the loss of her family of origin. The sweet memories you listed made us cry as I read many of them to her….
Thank you!
this was so great beth…thanks for a new perspective on memories good and bad!i have passed it on..
Thank you for this …. it’s just beautiful!
Tears, Miss. Beth. I really needed this perspective today. Reliving early childhood traumas so vividly that it continues to be painful makes it really difficult to appreciate memory as a good thing. Yet you are so right. Would I give up countless precious memories with my kids if it meant I could forget the dark moments? Not for a second! When I look at it that way, memory truly is an amazing blessing! Not to mention the fact that God is redeeming the hurt for good, and that requires remembering where I’ve been and growing in my faith BECAUSE of my experiences, not in spite of them. Many blessings!
Absolutely beautiful….absolutely true. Thank you so much, Beth Moore!!
Hopeful truthful words you shared. Thank you!
As I “remember” it is hard! I am writing a book bc believe led to share my testimony and live out Revelation 12:11! Often I want to give up the writing bc it is painful and so “relapsing” oriented. Recalling threatens me with seeing that pit and bondage and fearing it, reliving it in a sense as I write. But God’s mercy triumphs! With CHRIST, Truth and Grace, my feet stay sure in His foundation. I want redemption and to do His Will more than to quit. . And people do go after their wants! I want GOD’s Will! . The blackness of my past shows the light of the resurrection because thank you Jesus I am not that person anymore. Regret and shame still try their best to cousin up w satan to accuse and barrage and seed hopeless despair but JESUS advocates for me and says not guilty bc he took that confessed sin/guilt/shame and even regret! I am learning from JESUS to depend on Him and love him with all I have to LIVE HIS COVENANT! I desire to be fully converted as Peter! And to fear God and see andive His covenant! Psalm 25:14! Even with all this. it sometimes FEELS not enough. My feelings can defeat me and lie to me. ” Stop!” is the right word. I can say ditto to most all you wrote! Thank you Beth! Thankful for you and in all that darkness He was there and turned your ashes into beauty. Thank you for your faithfulness. Great is HIS FAITHFULNESS! Happy day when all our sins washed away! O happy thanks -giving glory to His great awesome Name!
This was beautiful. I have really been grieving memories lately. We expect to have some exciting news to share soon about permanency plans for our sweet foster daughters. I’m in a state right now of being so thankful that we got them when we did, but also in a state of grieving that I never knew the first few years of their lives. This made my cry.
Thank you Beth for being such a true daughter of God. You are not afraid to be real and honest and it speaks life to us. Because of your words, written or spoken, I have been able to see the real hope that Jesus has for us. It is not about shaping ourselves up but to surrender to the only one capable of transforming us more and more into the image of our Lord. I love that you enjoy life and live fully. Thank you and may this coming year be full of many more blessings for you and your family.
My pastor challenged us to write a list of 100 things we are grateful for over Thanksgiving week! One of the items I listed was….”I am thankful for memories” and now I open up your blog today and this is your subject. I have a few senior friends who are losing their memories to dementia and it is so sad for them and their loved ones. Good memories make me smile and bad ones build my character and make me thankful for how far God has brought me. Good or bad, they have made me who I am today and I’m glad I have them.
Well said!! Thanks for the reminder.
Remembering when I read “Breaking Free” & how it was like the Lord sent you to write that book just for me! I can never express to you how your obedience to the Lord has ministered in so many ways to me. I will always remember you, Beth.
After an almost successful suicide attempt, I came across this the other day. Wow. Just wow. Thank you Beth, your words are the ones I needed to read to remind me of how God has saved me, first with my salvation then keeping me safe & alive when I wanted to die. It is only by the grace of God that I am here today & I remember. Thank you so much Beth, I thank God for you.
Your Sister in Christ,
Becky
Thank You. Yesterday I got to visit with my 22 year old son in a Geogia Prison for the first time in 6 long months. We sat and talked events etched in our memory; thank you God for giving knowing we will need them one day. My son was sentenced to 12 years and I can only pray that the memories he obtains there brings light into his and others lives. Precious statements like “what’s the deal and let’s go cat fishing ” are etched in my memory. I have had a hard time today and this post helped more than you know!
God Bless you and your family.
Jane
Beautiful words!
Is there going to be a scripture memory team challenge in 2015?
Hi Pam, Yes! Beth tweeted about it yesterday as a matter of fact, and we should be posting more information soon on the Blog.
Thank you for remembering:)
One of the only things I seem to remember is my SSMT verses as I have gone over them at least 2x every week in prayer and did my own this year also. I am thankful I can remember that, and tell my girlfriends at our age, if I get senile some day I will probably only know my verses (I hope).
Wondering if there will be another SSMT this year-I highly encourage it.
p.s Yes I do remember a few other things and always write in sympathy cards to thank God for our memories of the things He has done through and for those that have gone on to Glory, that it my be of encouragement to us. The Lord so encouraged in Scripture to “remember these things that He has done ” and pass them on. Amen.
This is amazing. I am filled with tears, but need to pull it together and attend a Board meeting here at work! Love y’all; love the Lord and his mercy. Thank you just does not seem like enough to say for what He has done for me. My memories make me sick at times, but then I know what He has done and the pit from which I am dug. Now, I will get on with it.
Beth, Thank you for sharing your heart. For years I tried to forget some of the painful memories of my childhood, teen and young adult years. I’m thankful God brought me to point of facing them all some years ago. It was time to forgive and completely let go. It was time to experience the miracle of being set free. And it’s time to experience the best memory of all. To remember how far God has brought me and how he continues to make new memories for me of his blessings, deliverance and protection in my life. Blessed be our God for remembering me and never giving up on me. God Bless.
Thank you for all the WORDS which fill our souls with deep appreciation for our JESUS.
This is so moving! I love it. Thank you.
One of the most beautiful things you have ever written…. and I’ve been reading your words since early 90’s with your first Bible Study.
Beth, this is a very precious piece.
…at my age and stage of life (63, born again, a wife again, grandmother, mother, sister, friend), there are so many memories that can either undo or uplift, but I am with you- the memories that bless us do outweigh those that distress us!
And yes, the ability to be able to remember is a gift; I will not take that for granted when I see friends struggle with knowing that aging loved ones no longer recognize them.
I have a very special memory that I will always cherish- seeing my very ill friend hand in hand with you at church, being encouraged and uplifted.
Love you and what you mean to so many,
Fran
Yes, yes, yes.
I miss Lindsee!! So many good blogs over the course of her time with LPM! She was on it and did a wonderful job with words…..I miss her and her words!!! 🙁
Thank you so much for this beautiful post Beth. From a menopausal woman right here…..I no longer take my memory for granted! It truly is a gift from God on so many levels, like many of His extravagant gifts.
Speaking of memory, are we going to memorize Bible verses in 2015 as a wild group of women starving for Gods word? If so, are the spirals available? I apologize if I missed a post about this….
Again, thank you so much and….
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!
Part of my favorite worship song:
When we walk through life’s darkest valleys
We will look back at all You have done
And we will shout, our God is good
And He is the faithful One
Hallelujah, hallelujah
To the one from whom all blessings flow
Hallelujah, hallelujah
To the one whose glory has been shown
I still remember the day You saved me
The day I heard You call out my name
You said You loved me and would never leave me
And I’ve never been the same!
We will remember, we will remember
We will remember the works of Your hands
We will stop and give you praise
For great is Thy faithfulness!
I’m excited!!
Great choices! Love!
Awesome giveaway. Nothing better that teaching from Beth.
Excited about more Moore! Thank you for the giveaway opportunity.