Memories

Memory is a funny thing.

Think about your family sitting around the table at Thanksgiving, laughing and talking. An uncle tells a funny story. Your Mom interrupts: “That’s not how it happened.” She follows her declaration up with a retelling of the story the “right” way. Your uncle insists his version was correct. Another uncle chimes in. He remembered the whole thing in an entirely different way. Family members start taking sides and soon stuffing balls are being thrown across the table.  

Has that ever happened to you? Who’s to say that any of those family members is wrong? Each one saw the incident in a different way, and that’s how they remember it. Our memories can be fickle. Little details fade over the years, and we can either skip over the gaps in our memory, or our subconscious fills the gap in with new details that seem to be appropriate. As we tell the story with the new “facts” they become Truth to us.

I’ve had a vivid memory since I was four or five years old. My Dad worked for PennDot’s highway department. Somehow in the course of his work he got turned around in a forest and was lost. 

I vividly remember riding in the car as we drove the country roads through the forest. Every so often my mom and older brother would stop, get out of the car and call for Dad. There were other people involved in the search, but my childish mind wasn’t interested in them. 

I remember we would return home (again there were other people there lending support). We waited around until the phone rang, and get back in the car to follow the new lead. I remember sitting on the porch steps when one of those phone calls came in. My brother came out with the news that someone saw Dad, and once again we loaded in to the car to look for him.

Here’s an example of fading details. I have no memory of Dad’s discovery or of his return home. He just turned up back at the house, and my life returned to normal. It’s funny, though. After such a dramatic event in our family’s life one would think the subject would come up in conversations, but I don’t remember us ever talking about it.

Perhaps that was a clue I missed. Another clue might be the fact that my Dad, a highway worker, got lost in a forest where there were no highways.

And in my memory it seemed that the woods – not a true forest – was only a mile away from our house. The trees didn’t stretch on endlessly. Theoretically if he had walked far enough in any direction he should have come out at someone’s house or onto a road. At most he could have been lost for a day. Certainly not the three or four days of my memory. 

I also puzzled over the phone calls. Who made them? Why did they call? And if they thought they had seen Dad, why didn’t they pick him up or call out to him instead of going home and calling us (those were the days before cell phones, remember.)

I carried this memory with me, though I never spoke about it or asked any of the questions I mentioned above.  I was well into my twenties when I sat in the kitchen with my brother and parents, and I decided to ask about the incident.

“Remember when Dad got lost in the woods?”

Three sets of eyes were fixed on me.

“What are you talking about?” my brother asked.

So I shared the memory with them, but even as I spoke and saw the expressions on their faces I began to doubt myself.

They were unanimous in their declaration that none of it had happened. I was stunned. The memory was so real to me that here I am still able to tell the story some fifty years later. 

The only explanation I have for it is that I dreamed the whole thing. Possibly it was a recurring dream which would explain why I remembered so much about it.

Or maybe I slipped into an alternate universe . . . .

I have no other explanation for what was apparently a false memory. Some days I lean towards the idea that I slipped into an alternate universe. That would explain a lot of things. 

We all carry both good and bad memories. Sometimes we would rather not think about the bad memories. I understand that, but at the same time it could be edifying to look at how the Lord brought you through those painful circumstances. I don’t know about you, but I’ve grown as a Christian during the bad times.

On the other hand, Satan loves to remind us of all the mistakes we’ve made. I’ve been in the midst of an activity or task, and suddenly one of the stupid things I’ve done in my life pops into my head. I then chastise myself mentally: “You’re so stupid. How could God ever use you for anything?” 

Satan is the father of lies, and while the memories he brings back to us might be true – unlike my memory of Dad getting lost in the woods – the one thing he doesn’t want us to remember is that if we’ve confessed our sins “God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. . . “ I John 1:9. 

In fact Psalm 103:12 tells us, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (NIV)

Now that’s something to remember!