I was looking forward to visiting Zion National Park during this two-week vacation. I remembered impressive, huge black rocks with a checkerboard pattern when we entered the park. I couldn't wait to see them again and show them to Allison and Dylan.
Imagine my surprise when we got there and saw....this:
Impressive, to be sure, but definitely not black rock. My brain fought with my eyes all the way down the entrance road to the park.
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| Still not black. |
Eventually my eyes won and I conceded that I must have remembered wrong, but it really took a while.
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| OK, I'll give up and just enjoy them! |
It got me thinking about memories and I wondered how many other things I remembered one way in my mind, but it was actually different in reality.
Especially as I get older, I can't trust my memory as much. I have to write things down and put notes where I'll be sure to see them.
I guess that's why we take pictures and why some people like to journal. It gives us something to look back on and remember accurately instead of trusting things to our sometimes flawed memories.
Maybe the memories we have about something are darker than they actually were, like my "black" rocks at Zion. If we only have bad memories about something or someone, maybe we need God's help to remember more accurately or at least find the brightness that could be there.
He may help you see the beauty in a painful time. Keep going to Him with your difficult memories. He is God and He loves you. The Bible promises that you can trust Him, over and over again.
Never forget that, even if you forget everything else.
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| I have to throw this picture of Horseshoe Bend near Page, Arizona in here. Some mom's dark memory is going to be how she almost lost a son in July, 2017. |
"Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me." (Isaiah 46:9 NIV)
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| We saw this beautiful rainbow near Durango, Colorado today. Breathtaking beauty in a dark sky. |
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| The rainbow filled the whole sky (hard to capture from the front seat through a spotty windshield). |
Do you find that some of your memories are inaccurate? How can focusing on God help you to remember well and find the beauty even in painful memories?
Yes, I had faulty memories from childhood of the upstairs rooms at my grandparents home...which my dad corrected by actually drawing the lay-out on paper. HE would know but it's still hard for me to grasp the difference between my memory and the reality! You made me feel better that I'm not the only one :)
ReplyDeleteI DO remember praying for you about writing your book...how's it coming?!
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