Remember?

Do you ever wonder why God gave us the ability to remember? Overall, are you glad He did, or do you wish He hadn’t? Do you wish others didn’t have a memory and so wouldn’t be able to remember all the wrong things you’ve said and done in the past?

As I come upon the 8th anniversary of my Daddy’s death, I can’t help but remember. I remember him as he was when he was younger. I remember when he would take us out in the ocean as deep as he could go, and we’d jump the waves. I remember riding on his shoulders when I couldn’t walk anymore. I remember him diving off a diving board at the pool.

I remember.

Sometimes I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember him loosing his mind with dementia. I don’t want to remember him struggling to eat. I don’t want to remember watching him taking his last breath.

But I remember.

A few weeks ago, I was with some friends, one of them whose father had died right before her wedding. In her grief her mother told her not to remember the exact date of his death. But how do you do that? I don’t know. I think I’ll always remember.

I guess like everything else in life, we have to make a choice. We can choose to remember the good times with those who have died. We can choose to remember the nice things that people have said and done to us.

And like God does with us, we can choose to forget. We can choose to forget the hurt. We can choose to forget the wrong done to us. We can choose to forget the wrong we’ve done after we apologize for it. We can choose to move on.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. Phil. 3:13