MEMORY STRIPES

There are always those experiences that are so trauma or uplifting that they leave deep and lasting marks on our thoughts. Anytime we relive them it stirs the same feelings either good or bad.

Since far too many times in life we go through disappointments it seems I suppose often there are more negative memories that positive ones. I wish we could wave a magic wand at times and free ourselves from such recollections, but we never do.

The question is whether there is any benefit to reliving the past. I knew a person once that spent most of the time doing just that. Only in this person's case reliving the past meant spending the whole time savoring all the bad moments. In fact this same person when I would talk to the individual also loved to share all the details of sadness that had been gleamed from talking to other people who went to this individual's church.

So I would hardly qualify that type of obsession as healthy and I never saw any positive results from the process. All it did was generate a lot of negative and depressive energy.

To look back on the past and see the stripes through the eyes of faith is to look at both the bad and the good and see the hand of the Lord in the process. One can see his light even in the valley, but again you have make that part of what you are looking for.

Oh you can look back at the desert moments and lament over how barren was the time. Or you can see the same wilderness and marvel as well as give thanks that God was merciful and helped one to survive that moment.

To spend the time in reliving tears without any hope being drawn from faith's well is process offering no sense of healing or chance to look at the future with any degree of expectancy. Such is the nature of some people. They will always see only darkness and never look for the light. That is always a tragedy when the person is a follower of Christ for it shuts the door on the holy spirit touching in a way that can look at the horizon of tomorrow with any anticipation of joy.

My wife and I have endured our valleys. At the moment the Lord has been merciful to us and we have seen some unexpected changes that have truly given us reason to pause and praise.

Does that mean tomorrow will be perfect? Hardly. But I have tried to feel memory's stripes with a different sense as a result of how our life has transcended what it once was.

Ironically so many who helped contribute to our suffering will never know how God worked miracles in our lives to help us overcome their evil. Sometimes it is enough just to know that he is aware of the reality and touches just the same. In quietness there is a calm and the chance to appreciate the stripes of the past in a different light. Hopefully one that will give one a reason to be grateful so that tomorrow is looked upon with a smile instead of a frown.