“I have a lump!” Mama wailed frantically. “Call the doctor!”
Mama’s eyes, brimming with fear and tears, pleaded with me. She would have been pleased with a 9-1-1 response, but I, quite suspicious by nature, needed a bit more information. Guiding Mama back to the safety and comfort of her old lounge chair, I gently asked her to show me what had upset her.
“This!” Mama cried. She ripped open the snaps on her sweater and gingerly rested her hand on an oddly shaped mass protruding from her chest. Feigning genuine concern, I carefully untucked Mama’s shirt and, with the skill of a surgeon, removed a take-out box filled with decaying leftovers. I stifled my amusement and declared Mama to be “healed,” assuring her she would get my bill in the morning.
Mama was not amused. Confused and frustrated, she fumed, “Who put that in there? I’ve been looking for that. Why did someone do that?” A rather lengthy battle ensued over the “lump.” Even though the food failed our sniff test, Mama adamantly insisted it not be wasted. Hoping she would eventually forget about it, I offered to put it in the refrigerator as a goodwill gesture, hoping to negotiate a lasting peace. Sighing, I went about my business.
Within minutes, Mama appeared again. “Help me,” she begged mournfully. Once again, Mama’s bulge extended awkwardly from her middle. I never heard or saw her sneak back into the kitchen to retrieve her week-old turkey sandwich. And why would she have crammed it right back in that very same spot under her clothing? How could she have forgotten so quickly that we had just been through all of this? But, with sympathy and reassurance this time, the surgical procedure was successfully repeated…four more times that afternoon. Every single time, Mama was worried then shocked and annoyed that some phantom food stuffer was relentlessly targeting her. It was a long day. Why didn’t I think to just throw the dumb Styrofoam container, reeking contents and all, out in the trash can?
Why did my poor Mom have to suffer so from Alzheimer’s?
Why did it have to ravage her brain and rob her of who she was?
Why did it make her do such crazy, bizarre things?
Why did she have to forget everything…including me?
I think maybe that’s why I cling so tightly to Isaiah 49:13, 15 and 16.
Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the Lord has comforted his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted…
“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…”
My Heavenly Father promised me that HE will always remember me...even when my own dear Mama literally cannot. What a precious truth for me to cling to! Right next to the nail scars, the ultimate proof of His glorious love, He somehow has tenderly inscribed MY unimportant and insignificant name right there. Incredible! Unfathomable! He will never forget me.
And this begs a simple question. Do I remember Him?
Oh, how I want to live remembering HIM the way He so graciously remembers me! I don’t want to forget who I am because of Who He is to me and for me. I don’t want to walk through my days as a functional atheist, oblivious to His constant care and leading. I don’t want to essentially rule my tiny kingdom with no thought of my Creator, Sustainer, Savior, and King. I don’t want to be an ungrateful forgetter.
But, sadly, I often am. And I don’t have Alzheimer’s as an excuse.
This is what Paul Tripp has to say about our shameful forgetting propensity.
It’s so easy to forget who you are in Christ and what you have been given as his child. It’s so easy to shop horizontally for what you have already been given vertically. It’s so easy to give in to fear, to give way to shame, and to allow yourself to be weakened by guilt because you forget the present benefits of Jesus’s finished work. It’s so easy, in the hardships of life, to forget that nothing is powerful enough to separate you from God’s love. When you are struggling, it’s so easy to forget that if God gave you his Son, he will also give you everything else you need. It’s so easy to fail to live in light of the fact that Jesus didn’t die just for your past forgiveness (praise God that he did) or your future resurrection (what hope!), but also for everything you are facing in the here and now.
It’s so easy to forget that every trial sent your way is sent by a Savior of grace as a tool of grace to advance the work of grace in your heart and life….It’s so easy to forget that God really does live inside you in the powerful convicting, protecting, and enabling presence of the Holy Spirit. It’s so easy to forget that God loves and accepts you no less on your worst day than he does on your best day. (New Morning Mercies)
Yes, it’s too easy for me, when my world is in a mess or when I am exhausted, to wonder if God is good and if He cares and if He is in control. I simply forget Him and try to fix it myself. Sometimes I wonder if He is listening or if He is really near. And I sometimes, when I look around at the apparent ease of others, foolishly worry that maybe He has forgotten me…just like my Mama did.
But then I think of my verse in Isaiah….and a hundred other promises my Father has written to me in His Word. He will not forget me. He has written my name right there on His hand as a reminder. I rehearse over and over in my head all the times and ways He has come through for me over the decades since I have called Him my Lord. How sweet to recall His faithfulness and remember His works on my behalf...and for so many around me.
And I meet with my dear church family on any given Sunday morning and am reminded in a myriad of ways through the corporate worship and proclamation of God’s Word of Who my Father is, of all I have been given, and of Whose I am. I remember. I am comforted. I am blessed. I am grateful.
My poor Mama couldn’t remember where she put her lunch. She couldn’t remember her own name. She couldn’t remember me. She was a serial forgetter. But I am certain, as she sits at the feet of her beloved Savior in heaven right now, she isn’t forgetting Him! Ever again.
She’s now a serial rememberer.
I want to be too. Don’t you?
—Eileen Hill
