This week’s post brought to you by my husband, Jeremy Bushlack.
It’s Good Friday, a pivotal day in a Holy Week – a week to reflect, a week to remember.
Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of remembering. It started when I chanced on a Spotify playlist that my daughter Marissa created: verizon 3g lg cosmos 3. It contains songs that Marissa remembers from her middle school years when she got her first phone – Kelly Clarkson, Justin Bieber, Jonas Brothers. As I listened to it, memories flowed.
Now feeling nostalgic, my wife, Loretta, and I pulled a bin of 25-year-old photo albums out of storage, full of kid pictures. As we turned the pages, more memories (and tears) flowed.
- We remembered just starting out as parents, clueless.
- We remembered gingerly fanning a fledgling faith.
- We remembered songs and artists that helped fuel that faith (found in this playlist here).
As we listened to these songs again and again, we remembered.
Memory is a powerful, yet curious, instrument. We forget things we want to remember and remember things we want to forget. It’s no wonder God’s word admonishes us to properly manage our memory. It says:
- Remember your Creator (Ecc 12:1)
- Remember the poor (Gal 2:10)
- Remember Lot’s wife (Luke 17:32)
- Remember that you were slaves in Egypt (Deut 5:15)
Notice how God’s reminders aren’t all happy, happy, happy. Remembering our slavery to sin? Ick! Remembering Lot’s wife, being salinated for her disobedience? Yikes! We are to remember not just what’s happy, but what’s true and holy and beneficial.
Nothing is more true and holy and beneficial, more worthy of remembering, than the events we commemorate this weekend. I encourage you this weekend to exercise your memory.
- Do you remember your life before Christ?
- Do you remember how he kindly attracted you to himself?
- Do you remember how he died, so you can live?
- Do you remember how he rose, defeating death?
- Do you remember how he promised to return to dwell with us forever?
Now those are some good memories to let flow.
Have a blessed Easter weekend, remembering Jesus.
The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 1 Corinthians 11:23-25