Remembering Summer ☀️

or an introduction - what is remembering and why I'm talking about it all summer

This all started for me sometime in 2021.

Life had been bursting at the seams with both joy and sorrow. In the span of just five short years, I had buried my sister, moved twice, changed my career, and gave birth to twins. Oh and somewhere in that mix was something you all might remember—a global pandemic. Even now as I type this I am marveling at how we all survived. I know I wasn’t the only person living under the weight of their own story so I share mine with all humility—life was so…dare I say unprecedented.¹

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

I was in my head a lot during this season partly because I think mothering young children during a pandemic causes one to turn introspective (who else is there to talk to but yourself?) and partly because I was juggling the brain fog that comes with grief. Either way the pervasive theme for me was remembering. I was remembering a lot and talking to God about it often. I asked Him things like why do I have to remember this? while simultaneously praying things like please don’t let me forget. Remembering became the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about and I’d see it everywhere—like the new car you buy and then suddenly notice everyone else drives a grey Honda Odyssey. As more time passed, my conversations with God turned into a collection of questions that I’ve carried with me for the last few years.

What are the mechanisms of memory and why did God create our bodies with the ability to do this? What is the point of remembering when it’s painful? What does the Bible say about remembering? Will God use our memories for good?

Will He redeem even the gut-wrenching ones?

Ephesians 2 might be one of the most familiar passages of the New Testament. Take a look and see if that rings true for you:

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions…”

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy…”

“For it is by grace you have been saved…”

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works…”

Paul likely wrote this letter while in a Roman prison and sent it to the church in Ephesus with the intention of encouraging the believers. In this section, he calls them to unity by way of remembering, a detail that is almost lost in the middle of the chapter surrounded by all the familiar verses. Paul says “therefore, remember…”² that you were once dead, excluded, and without hope. Remember that through the death and resurrection of Christ your status has been reversed—now you’re alive, included in citizenship, and so very invested that you’re actually co-workers with Christ. Paul’s encouragement started with the call to remember their former selves and ended with the invitation to join in the good work of building God’s kingdom.

The most stunning detail to me: before they could build, they had to remember.

Why does this detail matter so much? In unpacking my questions about remembering, I had to start with the foundational belief that remembering is good. It is a means by which I stay connected to the truth of who I am in light of the truth of who He is. It is the only way to avoid that pesky and unreliable sense of self-reliance that creeps back in when I forget who God is and what He has done. When we don’t diligently remind ourselves that we were once outsiders to God and He’s done everything to bring us in, then we start to frame God as either ambivalent, arrogant, or worst of all, out to get us—instead of the one who is constantly rooting for our good at the right hand of the Father.³

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

My kids are obsessed with the memories section of the photo app on my iPhone. They constantly ask me “can I look at memories?” because like all of us they are delighted with the progress they have made as humans. They couldn’t eat food without getting it all over their faces and now they mostly can. They couldn’t ride a bike and now they command the cul-de-sac like a miniature biker gang. But what truly blows their minds are the pictures of my stomach with them inside it—”you mean I used to be in there…” They revel in the truth that they were once not a part of our family, but one day that was different. When they arrived, when their status changed, we were overjoyed—so much so that we celebrate and remember it every year for the rest of their lives. Perhaps once again my own children are showing me the way of the kingdom—the good remembering, the kingdom-building kind.

This is simply the start of a long conversation I want to have. It is not one that I’ll wrap up in today’s post, but one that I’d like to continue over the course of the summer. In the coming weeks, I’ll be releasing a series of essays about…you guessed it…can I say the word again without maxing out its pungency…who knows, but here goes…remembering. And because maybe you may want a preview, here’s some of what’s coming:

• the call to remember—what scripture says about it

• the neuroscience of remembering—how the brain and body remember⁴

• the practice of remembering—how to make it a rhythm

• the pain of remembering—what do we do with the heavy ones

• remembering & new creation—mostly questions here, but good ones I think

I hope you’ll join me in this conversation because I really need you. One-sided conversations are very rarely helpful so consider yourself needed and wanted here. To move things along, I’ll leave you each week with a prompt, something for reflection and response that may help me as I think, pray, and write more in the coming weeks.

So very grateful for you!

Emily

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Remembering Exercise & Reflection

Using the photos on your phone, find something you forgot about that at one point stirred your affections enough for you to take a photo. Would you share about it in the comments?

Or simply answer this: what is true of you now that wasn’t true of you 5 years ago?

1. The most overused word of 2020. You already knew that though.

2. Ephesians 2:11-12

3. Romans 8:34

4. I’m an LCSW so I have to tug at this thread a little bit.