Jill Price, 42, can remember every part of her life, she baffled doctors with her ability to remember every detail of every day since she was 14. She is the first diagnosed case of a memory condition called “hyperthymestic syndrome” in which a person can continuously and automatically recall all details of each day. Give her any date since she was 14, and she can almost instantly tell you what day of the week it was, what she did on that day, what she had for breakfast, whom she met that day….etc. Her memories are like scenes from home movies, constantly playing in her head, backward and forward, through the years. I don’t think any of us could imagine how life would be with such a memory because in a few minutes you are most likely to forget a lot of what you are reading now.
Life is an amazing journey filled with lots of memories both good and bad. It is interesting how we tend to vividly remember some things despite all our efforts to forget and on the other hand we forget some things (and names) no matter how hard we try to remember them. Scientists believe that human brain is quite messy or complicated, it does not always store things in an order, it overlaps information, it grasps some things and it automatically deletes some information…etc. Our ability to remember helps us in retaining helpful information and facilitates learning from the past, but our inability to forget our past failures or hurts not only cripples our growth but also makes us permanent victims. Remembering things in life may be a gift, but our inability to forget certain things or events could become a curse, a burden we cannot bear.
Remembering things in life may be a gift, but our inability to forget certain things or events could become a curse, a burden we cannot bear.
Mark Twain once said “The inability to forget is infinitely more devastating than the inability to remember”. I am sure that sounds like music to our ears for those of us who forget things. Forgetfulness is definitely a problem in our daily life, but what’s worse is our inability to erase some memories that haunt us and literally crush the joy of living. Dr. Grant Richison in his Grace Notes says “Some of us live in past regret. We grieve over bad choices. We rehearse our failures and sin over and over to ourselves. There seems to be a compulsion to constantly punish ourselves for those failures lest we fall again. People who practice this belief system cripple their Christian lives… The injustice may have transpired twenty years ago but it is still present in the mind as if it were yesterday.”
We cannot put one foot in the past and expect to move on to a bright and new future, we have to be willing to let go of our past, learn our lessons from our past, but never let our past control our present or our future.
Whether we like it or not all of us create memories and we store some of them in a mental tape recorder that plays them over and over again. Bob Gass writes “Psychologists estimate that we spend 50% of our mental and emotional energy repressing painful memories.” Trying to hang on to our past memories or even repress them could be emotionally very draining, they consume a lot of energy that could be used elsewhere more constructively. We cannot put one foot in the past and expect to move on to a bright and new future, we have to be willing to let go of our past, learn our lessons from our past, but never let our past control our present or our future. Dwelling in the past and harboring guilt for the past decisions and actions is a sure way to destroy our present and stunt our future.
When Judas Iscariot realized that he was partly responsible for the death of an innocent man (his friend and teacher), he was filled with remorse. He tried to reverse what he had done by returning the money to the Chief priests, but it was too late to undo the damage. He threw the coins in the temple, yet his guilt was so great that he committed suicide in his utter despair. He let his past control him and his past both condemned him and consumed him. The apostle Peter also denied Jesus three times, in fact the third time he swore an oath that he never even knew Jesus. The Bible says “and he went outside and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62). It is a part of Peter’s life that he can never erase, unlike our computers which have an undo or delete button that erases everything we don’t want to see on our monitors; our memory does not have a delete button. We cannot delete an experience or an event of our life, but as followers of Christ we can prevent our past from controlling our present or future.
The apostle Paul had a past that haunted him, he could not forget any of his sins (1Tim 1:13), in fact he goes on to say he is the worst of sinners (Vs 16), but the grace of God kept him from becoming a victim of his past. He writes in Phil 3:13 “Brethren, I do not count myself to have obtained it; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead…”. Paul is not recommending naivety or suggesting us to blindly forget the past; he is deliberately seeking God’s grace to leave the past and reach forward. Oh by the way if you wished to have memory like Jill Price, you should know this, she often considers her ‘inability to forget’ a curse, it’s a rolling movie that she cannot switch off. It is not easy to forget the past, to switch off those memories, but if we are able to see the past through the cross it becomes possible to see God’s forgiveness, overcome our past failures and thrive in life. All of us have things to forget and things to pursue and the grace of God to accomplish both.
It is not easy to forget the past, to switch off those memories, but if we are able to see the past through the cross it becomes possible to see God’s forgiveness, overcome our past failures and thrive in life.
– – Author: Rev. Francis Burgula – –
