memory

Looked After

| Marie Griffith

I lingered too long with my coffee yesterday morning. I planned an Independence Day run in my favorite park but didn’t start as early as intended. Orange cones already lined the street into the park to guide the throngs of firework watchers showing up to stake their claim to the best spots. I maneuvered my car through some of the cones to park in my usual space.

My run started better than expected and I felt good despite the heat. There were more people out and about at the park. Biking, walking, running, or preparing for their picnics. I ran through neighborhoods, around the school, then back to the park.

My run still felt okay but I was hot. I ran on the edge of a parking lot when I nodded to an older gentlemen driving a golf cart. He stopped the cart and motioned to me. I noticed he wore a cap with the park name on it. I wondered if he was an employee.

I walked to the cart and the man asked how long I’d been running. I answered him, then he asked how far I had to go. I told him, “three more miles to reach my goal.”

I must have looked overheated and thirsty. He handed me an ice cold water bottle from his cooler and told me to take it with me. Then he told me to take it slow. I opened the water bottle and drank fast. He looked concerned. I thanked him and turned to walk away. He said, “wait I’m not finished yet.”

He spread a small towel in his lap, filled the middle of it with handfuls of ice, and pulled the corners of the towel up around the ice. He put the “ice bag” behind his neck, on top of his head, under his chin, on his wrists and told me to do the same to cool off. I stood there with the bag behind my neck as he told me to be careful. He warned me of the heat again and I had a fleeting sense of familiarity.

He mentioned how he planned to celebrate later with his family and beamed when he talked about his grand children.

I thanked him again, reached to shake his hand, and asked his name. His eyes brightened, he shook my hand, told me his name, then asked mine.

Before he drove away, he said, “Marie, glad to know you.”

It wasn’t until this morning I discerned the familiarity.

The man on the golf cart reminded me of my father. Not his appearance, but the things he said and how he said them. His makeshift ice bag and demonstration of its most effective use. His going above and beyond in his care about such a small thing as me being too hot.

It was Dad who saw to our wounds when we were stung by yellow jackets or scraped our knees. He did the mean stuff. He dabbed our cuts with iodine or squeezed our splinters to the surface to pull them out with tweezers, and told us to stop whining about it.

As he aged, his care became more tender. More advice and prayers than tending wounds. Moving things or fixing broken ones. Letting us borrow what was his and always helping when he saw a need. Sometimes he helped before I knew I needed help.

Dad looked after us.

I finished my run. I took the man’s advice and slowed down, and it may be the reason I finished. I think it was another one of those times I needed help and didn’t know it.

 

Photo by Arleen wiese on Unsplash

 

Good Remembering

| Marie Griffith

For those of you that receive an email when I post, I apologize. Technology is good to me most of the time but has been a challenge today. I accidentally published some of my random thoughts and ideas for posts. So you got a little look behind the scenes. It’s going to be a good Monday School anyway.

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:21-24

These are verses that are quoted often. To encourage. To give hope. To remind.

If you read the entire book of Lamentations or at least all of Chapter 3 you’ll understand better the power of the words. They were written by a man who’d seen dark days. Weighed down by chains, torn apart, mangled, and cowered in ashes are some of the ways he described the suffering. The saddest words are these: “I have forgotten what happiness is. My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”

“But this I call to mind….” Another version of the Bible uses yet instead of but to begin the sentence. Either way, the man remembers. And the remembering gives him clearer vision. Then he keeps remembering other things like, God’s forever love and His never ending mercies. He recalls God’s faithfulness and because of all the remembering the man has renewed hope.

This man who felt enveloped in darkness with teeth broken by gravel. This man who complained about being taunted and filled with bitterness is filled with hope and proclaims the goodness of the Lord.

I think the way the author remembered the steadfast love, faithfulness and mercies of God is by looking back at his own story and others too. Maybe it was a small thing or a life-changing event. But he remembered something good. Maybe it was something tragic but something good came from it. Perhaps he remembered his friends or other loved ones, good times and good food. Maybe he looked at the sunrise, the lake, and the stars and remembered the Designer.

Whatever it was, the remembering was good and needed and changed everything.

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Lamentations 3:25

Mnemonic

Birthday

| Marie Griffith

January 3rd is when Mom celebrated her birthday. According to her birth certificate that’s the day she was born, but she actually came into the world February 3rd. I’m sure she was proud of the error on her birth certificate when she was a teenager. She turned 16 before she really was 16.

IMG_6128Mom never made much of birthdays, especially hers. Whatever it was….the winding down after the holidays or the fact that she never mentioned it, many times her birthday passed right by until one of us remembered to wish her a happy one. She always said, “Well thank you.”

As we grew up and out of the house, she usually sent a card or called on our birthdays. One of the most special gifts I got from Mom on my birthday was a card that recounted the details of the day of my birth. I’d turned 20 something when she gave it to me and that was better than any other thing I could’ve received.

Her last birthday was a great party. IMG_0837My niece gave her a “birthday girl” pin to wear and cooked a wonderful meal. We had cake, balloons, and lots of us gathered to celebrate her. I bet it was one of her best birthdays ever.

I wrote a post two years ago called Mama. The post is about Mom and the song that makes me remember a specific time I was with her and my younger sister. I wrote it just because I was thinking about her.

I heard the song this morning on my way to work, thought about Mom and remembered it was her birthday – her birth certificate birthday. The one she always said was her date of birth and the one we celebrated with her three years ago.

I miss her.

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But They Soon Forgot

| Marie Griffith

This week’s Monday School is about a topic that’s been rolling around in my head for quite a while. You can click here to find out about Monday School.

Memory……remembering……reminiscing……..looking back…..

These are what I’ve been thinking about. So when I read in Deuteronomy yesterday morning it caused me to search further.

The first part of the book is an historical account of Israel’s 40 year wilderness period given by Moses to God’s people. The word “remember” shows up dozens of times in Deuteronomy.

But this is the verse that got me:

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.   Deuteronomy 4:9 NIV

Over and over again God, through Moses, tells the people to remember.

“Remember the day you stood before the Lord……” Deut 4:10
“Remember the Lord rescued you…..”  Deut 4:20
“So remember this and keep it firmly in your mind……” Deut 4:39
“Remember you were slaves in Egypt…..” Deut 5:15
“Remember well what the Lord your God did…..” Deut 7:18
“Remember how the Lord God led you……” Deut 8:2

Do not forget……..remember the things your eyes have seen and keep them in your heart.

I think the word “fade” in the NIV version is so appropriate here. We forget slowly and sometimes unintentionally. The wonders and miracles fade away or cease to amaze us.  Or we work hard to forget the past because it’s painful and full of regret. Or we pretend the past never happened and try to remove anything and anyone that reminds us of it.

But God wants His people to remember……even the hard things…….even when they were slaves in Egypt.

Because remembering well and remembering honestly builds our faith, grows our patience, gives us courage and hope, and enlarges our hearts so that we look on others with compassion.

Psalm 106 tells what happened when God’s people forgot.

7″Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,
did not consider your wondrous works;
they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love
but rebelled…..”

13″But they soon forget his works;
they did not wait for his counsel….”

21″They forgot God, their Savior,
who had done great things in Egypt……

24″Then they despised the pleasant land,
having no faith in his promise.
They murmured in their tents,
and did not obey the voice of the Lord.”

They forgot and we forget. O God help us remember.

The last part of Deuteronomy 4:9 tells us to teach the things our eyes have seen to our children and our children’s children. When we do this……we’ll remember.

So we tell our stories. The good stories and the hard ones. The ones where God pulled us from the miry pit and the ones where He set our feet upon the rock. The stories where we turned away from Him to do our own thing…….and the ones where He welcomed us back into His loving arms. We tell the stories that are hard to hear and the ones that make us wonder. We not only tell them……we read the stories and listen to them too. That’s how we remember.

Remembering well reminds us that God is God and we are not. So when we read Paul’s words in Philippians 3:13 about “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” don’t think Paul is telling us to forget our past. More than any other of the New Testament writers, Paul frequently mentions his past in his letters. Paul knew that a good dose of memory of who we were before Jesus can be exactly what we need when we’re fighting the good fight or when we get too big for our britches. Paul means for us to be focused on God and His work….the work we are given to do……and not be distracted by what is behind us because while we are shaped by our past, we are not defined by it. God was there with us…..in our past…..in our pain……in our regrets and there’s nothing He can’t redeem, heal, and use for His purposes.

Memory is one of God’s beautiful gifts and one we are to steward like any other gift He gave us. How we look back over our lives matters.

Remember well. Remember honestly. Remember like it matters.

Photo by Cem Sagisman on Unsplash

 

They Won

| Marie Griffith

This is the kind of story that never gets old.

Daddy knew he needed to make a change.

To get better.

To save his life and ours.

He moved all of us to a whole new life in another state. Far away from the drinking binges and the fighting and the rehab centers that didn’t work. Far away from what happened and what was……..to something good and better.

The convoy to our fresh start rolled out one early summer morning in 1982. As a preteen I was probably less annoyed than most kids my age would have been. I knew I’d miss my friends but I was ready for something better. The hope of a calmer life, a different house, and a new school filled my heart. Moving day was a good day.

My sisters and I weren’t the only ones at a new school. Part of Dad’s new life included seminary and he began the night courses eagerly. He took careful notes in class and squeezed study time in when he could.

I can’t remember the day or the month or the season, but before the end of the first year Dad started drinking again.

Mom was devastated. She never told me that, but I know. Dad was too. When you’re a kid you have no idea what your parents are going through. Then you grow up and endure your own heartaches and one day, without meaning to, you feel the pain of your mom’s fear or the torment of your dad’s struggle with alcohol.

For the next decade Daddy lost the battle with alcohol over and over and over again.

Ten years.

Ten more years of the chaos and violence. Ten more years of tears and sorrow. Regretting the move, resenting the losses. Ten more years of emergency room visits and halfway houses. Ten more years of job changes and the financial strain and moving from house to house.

I’m sure Daddy remembered the day he took his last drink. He may have counted the days but he never told us. After about a year of him not drinking……we realized he wasn’t drinking. Then it was two years, then five. Ten years sober, then 20 years.

Daddy was sober for almost 23 years when he passed away in 2014.

Twenty three years of healing and restored relationships. Twenty three years of good memories. Twenty three years of the sweetest grace.

They won. Daddy and Mom pressed through and marched on. They fought the good fight and fought with each other. They messed up but moved forward. There were days they wanted to but they didn’t give up.

The long view is what got them through. The good days helped them see beyond the bad ones. When everything was falling apart they believed it could all come together. Love does that. It sees longer and deeper and wider. So my parents kept going. One day at a time. And they won.

The last time Daddy and Mom were face to face and held each others’ hands they weren’t thinking of the hard years. They were thankful for the moment and all the years that got them there.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.

Restart

Passed Down

| Marie Griffith

I have a place in my home where old things are displayed. Worn books, my grandmother’s hurricane lamp, Dad’s horsehair drafting brush, eye glasses and a pipe, my other grandmother’s woven hand fan, and black and white photographs from long ago. All of it sits on an old wooden chest built by my great-grandfather.

Things passed down from one generation to the next. Reminders of who came before and how they lived. Connections with the people who, for better or worse, loved and taught the ones who loved and taught me.

But the most important things passed down to me aren’t books and photos or wooden chests.

“If you don’t know where you’re from, you’ll have a hard time saying where you’re going.”
― Wendell Berry

Pedigree

A Clear View

| Marie Griffith

Though my daughter and I climbed the mountain for about two hours, our view didn’t compare to this guy’s atop the imposing flatiron.

Blake and I were content to watch others as we rested and shared our snacks.

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Several teenagers climbed a rock below us to see the other side and get a different view.

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High or low, on a mountain or in the valley, the happiest of times, the sad ones, and the scary ones too…..the best view is the one where you look back and see God’s mercies.

And when you can do that…..

you have the best view of all.
Scale

Keep Track

Image | | Marie Griffith

 

He knows us far better than we know ourselves…….that’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.      Romans 8:28 (MSG)

 

How we look ahead has a lot to do with how we look back…..how we keep track of where we’ve come from and the people we’ve known and who have known us along the way.

Who we are now is because of who we were then. The people who raised us and taught us and the ones who hurt us. Our parents and siblings and childhood friends. Aunts and uncles and cousins. Our teachers and preachers or strangers and lovers. All of them had and some still have a part in our lives.

And because God gave us the gift of memory we can’t get around it. That’s just how it works. So it’s important to remember well and truly……the wonderful and happy and the scary and tragic. All the good and all the bad.

A gracious thing happens when you remember well.

The good memories are treasured. They come unexpectedly and make you smile. Sometimes they bring tears but it’s the sweet, cleansing kind.

The other memories….the painful ones and scary ones…..the lonely ones…….the dark ones……all of them can become a source of thankfulness and compassion.

Thankful….because you’ve either made it through or are making it through. And compassion for those who have endured or are enduring the same pain or darkness.

Because we either make our worst memories work for us or they’re going to work against us.

All of them make our story. God takes all of it and uses it for our good.

We just have to let Him.

“It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years, God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later.”      Frederick Buechner

In response to Beloved.

Our House 

| Marie Griffith

There’s something special about getting to renovate the house I grew up in.

In the process of removing the existing floors I’ve discovered the floors I walked on when I was a little girl. The brown and gold flecked linoleum in the kitchen and the solid hardwood in the bedrooms.

In our attempt to remove the wallpaper in the back bedroom I found the green and yellow flower patterned paper that decorated my older sisters’ room when they were teenagers.
And I found pink walls underneath the wallpaper in my dad’s office which used to be the room I shared with my younger sister when we were in elementary school.

I’d forgotten the floors and the yellow and green wallpaper and the pink walls. These discoveries have unlocked a flood of memories.

Like the time I was sitting in my sisters’ yellow and green bedroom listening to Elton John’s Tiny Dancer on the radio one Saturday morning.

And now I remember sharing our bedroom with my grandmother for a while. She slept in a hospital bed beside our bed and I was scared.

And when Mom cooked oyster stew and I only put the milky part in my bowl to eat with oyster crackers because I don’t like oysters. Or when Dad showed me the way to eat cereal so that the little Krispies wouldn’t stick to the sides of the bowl. I sill eat my cereal that way.

I know other memories will come. Sweet, sad, and joyful ones. Maybe some scary ones, too. I am who I am because of the life that happened in that house and the people that loved me there. Those that taught me there and cared for me there.

Mom and Dad struggled there and forgave each other there. Dad took care of Mom there. We all learned there.

Learned to live and care and forgive there.

We all learned to love there in our house.

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. For what you have done I will always praise you in the presence of your faithful people. And I will hope in your name, for your name is good. 

Psalm 52:8-9 

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