Forgetting and Remembering
I forgot to take my journal when I went to see Bethany and her family last week, and until today I hadn’t stopped to write in it since I got back; but this morning I wrote pages and pages.
I really didn’t have time today, but I made myself stop and write anyway (it was so fun!). It’s still not the same as writing every day though. I remembered many of the cute things Eva did, but not as many as I would have remembered, had I written them down on the day they happened.
Forgetting and remembering is a theme in the Bible.
Paul thanked God, whom he served with a clear conscience the way his forefathers did, as he constantly remembered Timothy in his prayers night and day (2 Timothy 1:3).
Solomon tells his son not to forget his father’s teaching, but to let his heart keep his commandments (Proverbs 3:1).
All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will worship before Him (Psalm 22:27).
The lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children to those who keep His covenant and remember His precepts to do them (Psalm 103:17-18).
There are so many things I want to remember: God’s faithfulness, what Jesus has done for us, all of the good times with Ray and our children, and the adorable things our grandchildren do, to name a few.
After our grandson Avery died, it was important to me to write down everything I could remember about him while it was fresh. That is when I started to write a journal more consistently than I ever had before. I had started and stopped many times before that, but for the last two and a half years I have kept a journal. I get off track sometimes, but I always come back to it now.
Keeping a journal felt impossible for me when my children were little and when they were teenagers, too; but even then I had a book where I wrote down the particularly cute and funny things they did. I don’t remember now who the wise person was who told me I should do that, but I am thankful to her.
I am thankful for all the memories I can recall without a prompt and for the many things I can look back on now that would have been long forgotten without the advice of that forgotten person. I should have written her name down!
I am thankful for God’s memory. I know you are, too. In Isaiah 49:15, He asks a question and gives a promise:
Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
About the only thing I can be faithful in (aside from cooking and usually laundry and cleaning) is reading your email of encouragement and some form of devotion. It’s encouraging to know that the sparse notes I’ve written on occasion is exceptable for a mother of four little whirlwinds.
Completely acceptable!! Thank you for this sweet encouragement.