This week we celebrate our grandson Joseph’s high school graduation and, like all grandparents and parents, we all ask where has the time gone? The standard answer is it has flown by. Is there a time graveyard? Or a huge closet where time is just hanging around? No, it is gone. Time really is one of our most precious commodities and all of us take it for granted and abuse it. Yet it is so precious and fleeting. I have so many treasured memories of Joseph and our time together and yet I wish there were more. But I cannot go back in history and make even one more memory with him. He will never be two months old or three or six years old again. That space in our lives is over, never to be repeated.
The one thing in life that we can’t ever get back is time. Once that hour is gone, it is gone forever. Almost everything else in life we can get a redo on, a second chance, but that is not true with time. There is no redo with yesterday. We can relive that moment in time as we travel back in our memories, but it can’t be changed. Some of our memories we truly enjoy and visit them regularly. However, many of our memories are full of fear, hate, shame or regret. These are the emotions that memories often bring with them. How strange that an event that happened years ago still holds our hand and wants to walk us back into that situation. There waiting for us are the feelings and reflections from that slice of time in our lives.
We forget what we ate last week, who we talked with, what we wore, and a thousand other things we did, but in our memory there are also thousands of things that we have not forgotten. No matter how forcefully we try to push some of them away from us, they still call our name. They have not forgotten us. Again we are thankful for many of them and others we avoid at all cost. Still the past can’t be changed or altered. However, it can be forgiven if need be and that decision severs the tie that binds us to anger, fear, regret, shame, and all the other negative emotions. Forgiveness, if applied, can and will silence those voices that haunt us.
Also love and mercy, if applied daily, can assist us in making good memories and basking in the joy of every hour. These two wonderful gifts are so powerful and life changing for all of us and yet we don’t saturate ourselves and others with the sweetness of them every day. They both are what is desperately needed by every human on this planet.
So what is the secret of happy memories? Love and mercy given freely to all and even to ourselves. Every day jump into the ocean of His love and mercy and pull as many people as possible in with you. Allow yourself to drown in His sweetness. Then your memories will have the aroma and goodness of Him – Jesus. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. Every day plant seeds of love, mercy and goodness and you will harvest countless amounts of the same and your memories will be sweet.
Remember: While we were His enemy and living in rebellion against Him – He loved us and gave Himself for us.