The downstairs was getting fuller and fuller of so much stuff. She had to venture up in that attic to clear out some space.
Up the wooden staircase, through the cob webs and musty scent she went.
She placed a new brown box full of unneeded items on the floor. She turned around to leave, when, oh wait. What's in there?
Oh. She remembered that box. She remembered all of it.
She sat down, and opened up the box.
One by one she pulled out a memory.
This one made her sad. She felt her eyes sting.
The next one made her angry. She felt like screaming.
The next one made her feel frustrated, and sad and angry at the same time. She gripped that memory with white knuckles.
She remembered everything. The memories refreshed themselves in her mind, and she felt like they weren't memories. No, these things still lived. They shouldn't have been boxed up. She relived the box anew. New life was given to old memories. The memories had been summoned, invited. They were no longer of days past. Now they are today.
She took her box of memories, and carried them downstairs.
One by one she framed them in her home. She set them on her walls, so everyone who entered her home would see them. They are precious to her. They belong to her.
She belongs to them.
She is a prisoner of these memories. They have power over her. They make her not only remember, but feel.
It's not possible for the past to live in today. Time leaves yesterday behind. But memory reaches out a hand, to pull back the past into the present. Yesterday isn't today. But it feels like it to her.
It feels like it to me.
Occasionally I go upstairs to my "attic," a place in my heart where I store my deepest feelings and most sacred experiences. Some happy, some sad, some terrifying, some earth shattering.
I visit this place, I watch the memories play before me as if on a plasma screen TV. I'm overwhelmed at my memory. I'm overwhelmed. I feel. I feel all over again.
Sometimes I take these memories "downstairs." Into my current mood. Into my words I'm currently speaking. Into my reactions to new things. Into my reasons for my current tasks. Into the core of my very being.
And I feel secure. I feel loved by my own memories. I feel understood, because they are mine. I control them. They take orders from me.
But that's not true.
My emotions are all too submissive to my memories.
I am a slave to my memory.
Why does God let me remember? Why can't I forget? Why can't I move on into a new place, estranged to the evil that lurks in my "attic," my mind?
How can I disengage my heart, when I feel so seen, so known, so safe inside my memories?
Memory is something other worldly. The Bible constantly uses the word remember. The Israelites constantly forgot the Lord, their God.
Judges 8:34 says Thus the sons of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.
Their memory failed them in some ways, but not in others. Yes, they remembered something else. At least they thought they did. They remembered comfort. They remembered ease. They valued the past, even though when they were in the past, their slavery, they suffered and begged for deliverance.
Their memory was alive and well... but not to make them alive and well. They chose to allow their memory to enslave them again. The memories changed as they recalled them while in current fits of rage of confusion and hurt. Those memories didn't shine anew since they had in fact been saved. No. They viewed their memories through lenses of pain, and confusion. Now those memories didn't seem like bad ones. They seemed like home. They felt like home.
They had gone up to their attic, retrieved memories and felt them anew, and framed them in their current mind so that they viewed their today enslaved to disillusionment.
Judges 3:7 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
Psalm 78:42 They did not remember his power-- the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,
Deuteronomy 4:9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
Hmmm... clearly, there is reason as to why God allows our attic to exist. We can use it to store the memories we need. He has a purpose for our memories.
We don't have to forget the pain. We don't have to throw away the dark hurts we store inside.
But they will destroy us if we don't frame them in His purpose.
The Israelites chose to forget His purpose... they framed their memories in their own sickened and hardened hearts. They remembered the pain. They drank it in deep. They chose not to frame their important, precious memories with renewed strength. No. They framed their memories with pain. And the pain grew deeper.
They chose to forget the Lord. They selectively chose their memories to frame, and forgot what they wanted to forget.
There's another side to this picture.
Exodus 2:24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.
Numbers 10:9 When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the LORD your God and rescued from your enemies.
We are remembered by God. He remembers us. He calls forth the past, and brings it to today, and remembers.
But this can't be right. This can't be good. He knows us. He knows us too well! This can't be a good thing!
Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you...
Psalm 69:5 O God, it is You who knows my folly, And my wrongs are not hidden from You.
Psalm 44:20-21 If we had forgotten the name of our God Or extended our hands to a strange god, would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.
He knows us too well. If He remembers us, it couldn't be a good memory. He must remember our sin. He must know the things that should separate us from Him forever.
Someone, keep me, hide me! I can't be seen by Him...
Unless.... unless He frames his memory somehow... unless He frames his memories of us in a way that shields us from what we deserve to be in His mind.
Exodus 12:13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
1 Peter 1: 18-19 ...knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
Hebrews 10:19-23 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
When He looks on us, when He remembers us, He sees us framed in the blood of the spotless Lamb. He sees us through the blood of Jesus.
Now our memories... our memories should be framed. But not with pain. Not with hurt. Not with the unforgiving confusion we so easily retrieve.
Our memories must be framed with the blood of the Lamb. So that the pain, the hurt, the sin might pass over us. So that we might be saved from he that lives to rob, kill and destroy.
We've been framed, my friends. We have been framed in the blood of Jesus. We have been framed.
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