Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me.
Psalm 103:2
(New Living
Translation)
Do you ever forget things? Sometimes I forget an appointment that I forgot to write down on a calendar that I misplaced. Sometime...OK, well, most of the time, I forget what I need when I arrive inside the grocery store, and I usually leave with all the things I shouldn't have bought, and without the one or two things I went to buy in the first place.
Sometimes I forget special days, like birthdays. We just get so busy with day to day activities in our lives that we completely forget something that was probably important enough to write down on that calendar that we never found.
But then, there are those things we never forget...like the smell of grandmother's lotion or the sweet smell of honeysuckles from the garden on the farm from childhood, the sound of grass being mowed or the smell of approaching cool rain on a sultry summer evening.
The smell and sounds and sights that we associate with people who were important to us but have been taken from our view, linger with us for years and years, and even many years after an event, a fragrant smell, a familiar sound, or visiting a familiar place will bring those memories alive as if they just happened for the first time. And there are stories that we never forget, like the "remember when ...." stories that make us smile and remember how loved someone made us feel.
The Psalmist writes of remembering, and today's reading is no exception. "May I never forget." Isn't that the longing of our hearts when we remember how loved we are - to never forget the one who made us feel so loved? At the low points in our lives, we should have a box that we open - a box of "remember when ..." stories of all the wonderful things God has done for us, of all the times we have felt God's love through others, of all the times when we didn't have to walk through troubling times alone. We could include special scriptures and sayings that have seen us through the dark times, the lonely times, the hard times. We should keep that box close to us so that on those days when "spiritual amnesia" sets in and we find it hard to remember our own story, we can pull out that box and "remember when" God walked with us and saw us through the long, dark nights.
Do you ever get "spiritual amnesia?" Start today making your own "remember when" box of God's grace and goodness in your own life.
Rev. Jan McCoy is the associate pastor of Covington First United Methodist Church in downtown Covington. She may be reached at jan.mccoy@ngumc.net.
