Remember to Remember

I suppose my re-association with fall's crisp cool air, variegated foliage, shadowed sky, and saturated grass is to blame for the recent insistent intertwining of memories with my consciousness. As the world says a brilliant farewell to each year's verdancy, I find myself pulled into a remembering that no other season induces. Perhaps it is because much of my deepest personal growth has occured during fall and winter seasons.

As the yellow leaves cling tenuously to the trees outside, I remember the acorn tree that flourished in full view of the bedroom window of my childhood home. Always the first to turn, it was synonymous with fall for me. Fall, with its afternoons of leaf-raking with my family, hats and mittens, board games & legos, and school routine. The family withdrawal to indoor coziness meant a special kind of security to me.

With the falling rain, I remember my early teens. We heated our home with a fireplace insert. I remember the chilly hours of stacking cords and cords of wood while rain dripped & I kept a wary eye out for spiders. I remember hours of watching the flickering flames, interspersed with reading and writing pages and pages and pages of reflection on life.

With the shadowed sky and early dusk, I remember the October days when we first moved everything we owned into storage, with the exception of our suitcases and a little food. When the lights romanticize our neighbors' warm family rooms before their shades are drawn, I remember what it felt like to live through a winter in a one-room shelter we could not call home. I remember dim days of physical & emotional pain when I wondered how my physical ailments would effect my future dreams. And then when I knew how it would effect them.

As the wind picks up, I remember two years of rural living in what I like to think of as our Swiss Family Dwelling. The wind whipped both frequently and strongly through the trees around us and I frequently awakened to its fury. I remember the drawing closer together times our family had as we braved the wind & frozen ground to put grass in. I remember the walks to and from the nearby beach and the nearer church.

I remember, too, the shift in wind direction that meant fall had come to the Oregon coast. I remember the road trip we took there along a rushing river, with the mountains and their dozens of colors reflecting in the water below us. I remember our move there on a brilliantly blue and gold fall day, and our move back to Washington on a drenching, gray winter day. And I remember the changes each of those moves meant in my life.

Intermixed with the practicialities of wind & weather, I remember with a smile the times when I wanted to skip & dance & sing in the knowledge that God was on His throne. And I remember also those times when I cried & clung somehow, dimly to a faith in God's kingship though I couldn't seem to trace His Hand anywhere at all.

Then, as I remember, I always see clearly what I best love to know. Regardless of its color, each memory is pressed with the clear fingerprints of a God Who has promised that the earth will not outlast its seasons, that He will complete the good work He's begun in me, and that He will not change. I don't believe in clinging to the past or living in its memories. Nonetheless, I'll consciously store these memories up for semi-frequent review. Within them I find yet another promise that my life won't outlast His faithfulness.