Calvary's touch Encourages You: "What Do I Do with the Memories?"

What Do I Do With the Memories?

When the blowtorch of exposure has finally turned away we are left in a feverish state. The perspiration beads of memory stand thick upon our foreheads, adrenalin still speeds through our bloodstream, and we know it will be a long time before normalcy returns. At such a time, we almost wish for amnesia. If only the past could be erased, if we could dismiss the pictures that flash in living color upon the screens of our minds. Instead, our misdeeds are rerun over and over, as if on a closed-loop film, from the beginning to the awful conclusion and back to the start. We force our brain to switch subjects, but before we know it, there we are again, thinking about it for the thousandth time. We identify with David, who, after his affair, wrote, "My sin is always before me" (Ps. 51:3).

Memory, we realize, is a two-edged sword, though it has served us well in the past, it now turns and threatens to destroy us. Memory is one of God's great gifts, a unique part of our creation as human beings in His image, but for the moment we would just as soon be a bit less gifted. What do we do with our memories? There are several options available to us.

1. We can become their prisoner. The replay machinery of the brain has vast power supply. It is thus altogether possible to live for weeks, months, and even years in a vicious trap of the past.Emotionally, we ricochet from shame to anger to guilt to fear and back again. Round and round we go, from one anxiety to another, while the events themselves echo through our heads.
We have an example of this whirlpool in the contrasting lives of two disciples of Christ in the N.T. Two broken men appear side by side on the stage of Scripture. For many men and women the agony of Judas and Peter becomes their own... They arrive at a midnight moment. Hope disappears and they reach the end. Like Peter and Judas they face a choice-one that despair always offers- between remorse and repentance, between dying and weeping.
A second option as time goes on, is even more deadly than the first.

2. We can embellish our memories. We begin to place negative interpretations upon the facts. The reason we did such and such, we conclude, was that we're simply rotten individuals who always make a mess of things. All our vague misgivings and self-doubts link up with these events as proof of our worthlessness. The next step of embellishment is to put ourselves on trial. Our memories serve as evidence of guilt, after which we act as judge to pass sentence upon ourselves.

3. We can release our memories. We can allow ourselves, with God's help, to lose track of some things! Our memory is supposed to be selective. The painful things are meant to recede over time, while the good things keep shining bright. It is the enemy who likes to hang onto the rubbish so he can keep using it against us. He enjoys exhuming it before our face time and again, reminding us of how dreadful we were. He doesn't want us to release those memories, to forget.
What has happened in the past may not, in the end, be as important as how we choose to feel and think about what has happened. The way we choose to treat our memories has more to do with the future than the events themselves. If we are consumed with driving toward the goal Christ has held out for us, the past is not all that relevant.
God intends to make us whole persons by calling us to take on new attitudes, future-oriented attitudes. This does not happen overnight. The New Birth is not the total cure, but only the initial treatment in the process of bringing us to wholeness. Our return to God after a downfall is not a once-for-all miracle; it is rather a restarting of the change process toward emotional and spiritual health. The important thing is not to stall at any point along the way, to quit the race.
" Let us throw off everything that hinders...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1. Be encouraged.

******************Letter # 19 (13.5.2001)****************************