Be No Hearer Who Forgets

This picture showed up on Facebook. It is of me as a little girl, at age ten, in an art class near Memphis. I am the first kid in the picture. One of my older sister's elementary school friends found it, recognized the last name, and asked if it was her! (He didn't realize she had a sister.) I vaguely recall that my parents made sure I had art classes my whole life. I don't remember being in the newspaper however.

My life passions haven't changed much. I loved art, nature, animals, running, biking, and solitude from a very early age. I didn't know God back then, not on a personal level. I suspected He was real, but He was not the center of my life like He is now. In that way, I am a totally different person.

Meanwhile, after this blast from the past, my sister Wendy and I were eating lunch with my folks in their new assisted living facility. The woman at the table with us was our old French teacher. She didn't remember us, and frankly, I didn't remember her, but it was still a sweet coincidence. You can't escape your past. (However, I don't remember much French anymore.)

We brought the folks to their house, which is yet unsold. My brother, John, and lovely wife Jenny came to join us. We all sat around, listening to my parents' stories of the mementos in their home and the significance of each.

 Wendy thought of this and recorded it all for us. (GREAT idea, Wendy, and to everyone: well worth doing with your own parents or family.) The past matters so much in who we have become. It reminds us of where we have been, and perhaps guides us in where we should go.

The Bible talks of the past in many passages, and in general, warns us to leave our past behind, particularly the sin that drags us down. However, the past is not to be discarded. As James warns us, to look in a mirror and then go forth and live while forgetting who it is we saw in the mirror is as incomprehensible as following God without knowing what He has told us and who He has been to us in the past. Be no hearer who forgets....

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1: 22-25

After our family reminiscing session,Wendy and I went for a long walk to an old favorite haunt, Struble Dam. We remembered how Mom and Dad used to bring their dog, Spots, to that lovely place and we would all hike along the top of the dam, admiring the view.

Each step along the way sparked memories of happy times in our childhood, and then memories of how we had raised our own children. Our past is like anyone's, colored with good and with bad. The incredible miracle of the past is looking back and seeing how it all was a river flowing into the ocean of our present in a clearly designated path that was impossible to see when we were only partway there. Hindsight can create bitterness, but it can also create marvel at the provision and providence of God.

For example, I used to hate Wendy and try to claw her eyes out with my strong, unchewed fingernails. Now look at us, remembering the past with gladness over who we had become. God has a way of bringing us to an unexpected place, but there is beauty in it. One can't dwell in the past, and remain a child, spiritually or emotionally, but when moving forward, remember how God was always the unseen presence weaving a magnificent tapestry that is not yet done.

My haircut is pretty much the same as when I was ten, however.
Be no hearer who forgets. 
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Philippians 3:13-14 

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:1-21 

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. ...