Christian Resources
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Miscellaneous

Without doubt November is the month of Memory. It begins with the Commemoration of all the saints in earth and heaven, not least those whom we have loved and lost awhile. Then comes the Fifth - remember, remember the Fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot! Then at Remembrance-tide our November memories enfold those who might have been the light and lamp of their times but for the savagery and slaughter of war. 

Recently I found myself taking a trip down Memory Lane. I had been invited to conduct the funeral service of an old sailing acquaintance who had died suddenly in sad and distressing circumstances. Following the cremation a lot of my former sailing friends from the 1970's and 80's gathered at the Royal Forth Yacht Club at Granton. Many a trip down Memory Lane was undertaken that day. How we reminisced! Memories of nautical incidents, personalities, adventures, disasters, triumphs and defeats came flooding back. It was a strangely consoling and satisfying experience.  

Of course, the older one gets, the more frequent are these trips down Memory Lane! And so in this month of memory may I invite you to take a trip down Memory Lane and ponder the path, with its many twists and turns, which has led you to this present day. Is it not true that everything that has happened to us still lives and breathes somewhere deep within us?  

Sometimes it doesn't take much to bring it back to the surface - a scrap of some song that was popular years ago - a book we read as a child - an old photograph, an old letter. Memories suddenly well up from deep within us - the sadnesses, the hurts, the losses - but also times too beautiful to tell - the precious times, the precious people. The important thing is that we have survived, and more than just survived! And it is God we have to thank for this, and not our lucky stars!  

I'd like to think that, as we look back and remember the way we have come, we have this compelling sense that something or someone has been leading and guiding us, accompanying us every step of the way, picking us up when we stumbled and fell, strengthening and undergirding us when we felt drained, vulnerable and helpless, comforting and sustaining us when we were at a low ebb, when we felt alone and bereft.  

To remember the past is to discover that God has been with us in our best moments, and in our worst moments, as the strength beyond our strength, the wisdom beyond our wisdom, the love beyond our loving. To remember the past is to acknowledge that we are here today by grace alone. 

The gift of memory is one of life's priceless gifts, but it can also be a destructive thing, not least when it enables the past to haunt the present with malevolent power. Time and time again in the healing ministry I have encountered memories that are rooted in guilt and anger, bitterness and hate, memories that have a destructive effect on the human personality. Such memories require a deep and radical healing - in effect, a healthy dose of amnesia! 

Be that as it may, we do well to remember. We do well to remember what God has done in and through and with our lives. We do well to remember what He has done in Christ, going to indescribable lengths to ransom, heal, restore, forgive. We do well to remember what it cost Christ to bring us back within the embrace of that love so amazing, so divine. We do well to remember those moments in our lives when Christ came to us in countless disguises, through people who, in one way or another, strengthened us, comforted us, healed us. And because we remember, we can also hope, for hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes focussed on the future. Because we remember, we have this high and holy hope that what God has done, He will continue to do, that what He has begun in us, He will, in unimaginable ways, bring to fullness and completion.  

Enjoy your trips down Memory Lane, not least in this month of Memory. May they contribute to a rich, consoling and satisfying feeling that, somehow, all is well.