Forgiveness: When I Found Peace About Losing My Memory

Memories. Our life practically revolves around them. We are always doing one of two things when it comes to memories: making them or remembering them.  In life, we make all types of memories, good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones, exciting ones, etc.  Without memories, would we truly be living life?  Imagine one day you woke up and something was different.  Maybe you remember your suitemates, your professors, some of your friends,, but there was an all too looming feeling that you weren’t remembering something important.  You would see faces that you recognized, but you couldn’t place where you knew them.  You would here familiar names, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on where you knew the name.  You might even look through your phone and see yourself in pictures with the same people over and over again.. but there were faces you couldn’t place.  There were events you didn’t remember happening.  These people in your pictures were your best friends, but you couldn’t remember who half of them were.  So you ask the friends you can remember about these mysterious faces in your pictures. They would say things like, “Oh you got into an argument with him/her last week,” or “Oh, he/she is one of your best friends. You are always goofing off together,” or even “Oh he/ she was you ex-girlfriend/boyfriend (or even you had the biggest crush on him/her).”  Imagine not being able to remember key people or events in your life.  It’s scary. We cling so closely to memories they practically drive our lives.  Memories are how we keep up with friendships and romances and even sometimes whom we are angry with.  Memories run our lives.  And one day you can wake up…and they are gone.  Maybe over the next few days, things will happen here and there that spark you to remember something or your friends will remind you of something you have to do…but you still feel like you are missing a key ingredient to the recipe that is your life.  In life, you never know when something will happen that will change the way you look at things.  For me, it was losing my memory.  It was as simple as I had a POTS spell one night, and I woke up the next day and was missing key memories. It was like a thief came in the night and stole a bag full of really important information from deep within my psyche.   I walked to class and people would say hi to me and ask me how I was doing, and I had no clue who they were.  I would sit at an event I knew I was supposed to be completely unsure of why I was supposed to be there.  I would have some of my best friends come up and talk to me about something we did together or something I had just tried and I would have no clue what they were talking about…and when they figured out I couldn’t remember who they were, I could tell it really bothered them.  Throughout the day, I would maybe remember one or two things (and of course as soon as I did and I realized I had the persons phone number I would text them and tell them what I remembered), but I still couldn’t quite pinpoint my relationship with the person. People could tell me all day long that they were my friend/teacher/etc, but it still wasn’t ringing a bell. It was an utterly helpless feeling…to begin with at least.  As I continued the process of trying to remember, I began to think about God’s process of forgiveness. When we ask for forgiveness, God wipes our slate clean (I don’t know if he forgets our past or what but that’s a different topic for a different day).  So in wiping our slate clean, our transgressions are obliterated (for all intensive purposes), which is quite amazing.  In losing my memory, yes I have forgotten some good things (which God DOESN’T do), but I have also forgotten the bad.  Like my friends can tell me, “Oh, you got into an argument with that person,” but I don’t remember it. Which makes it like the forgiveness of God in the fact that the old is gone and all that can be made from here on out is new. SO when we get forgiven, we are made clean and those “fights” (aka transgressions) aren’t a problem anymore. God sees us as a new person and begins a new relationship with us. So in losing my memory I have learned a lot about forgiveness.  Will the memories come back? I don’t know, maybe eventually. But until then it’s kind of like a new beginning. Like a clean slate. So in that, who knows I may be getting a second chance to make new and different memories with the people who surround me.  And although this is an exceedingly frustrating and uncomfortable trial I have to tackle right now, I know God is using it in some way.

Isaiah 1:18

"Come now, let us settle the matter," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

2 Corinthians 5:17

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”