MEMORIES!

I love my sister (a year younger than I) and her memory of our past growing up. She and I were very close, inseparable. My memory is not detailed like hers. Does that bother me? Nope. The other day when she was texting me about some of her memories and asking me if I remember those times – I said I somewhat did but not like she remembers them. Then I told her, “I choose to live in the present, looking forward to the future that I have in Christ.”
Some people seem to enjoy looking back to their good memories in order to find joy in their present day. The present for so many people is not joyful and so living in the past (revisiting their comforting memories), is what they choose to do. Then there are those people who can’t help BUT TO live in the past unable to forget being so very hurt or violated. When I got right with Jesus Christ my Savior, I was able to forget that which is behind and press on to that which is ahead! This morning in the Word of God I was encouraged (again) by the TRUTH in God’s Word: “So in Christ Jesus you are children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ (by His Spirit) have clothed yourselves with Christ (who is our righteousness)… If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and HEIRS according to the PROMISE.” Galatians 3:26-29
I told my precious sister, that I choose to live in the present looking forward to the future that I have “in Christ,” BECAUSE this fills me with JOY and PEACE and HOPE and LOVE. All my life BEFORE Christ just can't compare with my life AFTER Christ came to live in me!
Because Jesus Christ loves me the way no one else can, and promises to finish what HE STARTED IN ME, I don’t need, nor want, to live in the past, no matter how many good-feeling memories I have. And, I choose not to revisit any grievous or painful ones, because “in Christ” I have been set free from being hurt or offended in any way, and so graciously freed even from the guilt of my own sins (all strongholds that have power to keep me imprisoned). “God sent His Spirit of His Son, the Spirit who calls out (from within me), ‘ABBA, Father.’ So, you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are His child, God has made you also an HEIR.” Galatians 4:5-7
We (my sisters and I) never had a father growing up. My biological father just wasn’t father material in any kind of way. I believe it was God’s will that he was removed from my upbringing (through divorce) so that I grew up without him. I find it interesting that I never had my two grandfathers in my upbringing either. They both died when I was very young. (I am the oldest of my sisters.) I don’t have any memories of either grandfather, only what my mother tells me about them, which comes out of her own ‘personal’ memory. When it comes to remembering things, I choose to remember those things the LORD HIMSELF has done for me, and taught me as a TRUE FATHER. In fact, I have many journals recording all that He has taught me – SO THAT I NEVER FORGET, even the ‘painful’ things that my Heavenly Father had to teach me. All my Heavenly Father's discipline in my life IS TO BE remembered, so that I never get prideful, and so that I will CLING to the One who is my RIGHTEOUS REDEEMER.
Isn’t it amazing how the LOVE and GRACE of God puts everything about our past and even about the present - in their right and truthful place? ALL PRAISE AND GLORY to the LIVING WORD OF GOD: JESUS CHRIST, my eternal life!

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