The difficult simplicity of remembering

This past week was the normal kind of insanity around our household (thus, the lack of blogging).  I really do think my wife and I need to keep better story logs.  There might be a "no way could this happen to one family" book in them.

Tuesday night, I watered the dog as usual.  Moving the bowl from the sink to the tray outside is all of about 25 feet and somewhere along the way I spilled about an ounce.  On the tile.  In the middle of the walkway...or in our house, the runway.

You know where this is going, right?

Peanut runs.  Peanut slips.  Peanut falls.  Peanut cries.

After several minutes of crying and a pretty significant goose egg, Peanut asks the Queen, "What day is today?"

Huh?

And it got worse from there.  I had promised her a dollar because she had helped me clean up something.  She didn't remember it.

"What did you have for dinner?"  "Uhm...was it breakfast for dinner?" (no, sloppy joes)

"How did you get home today?"  "Uhm...riding my scooter?"  (no, mom picked you up)

Hello E.R. visit.  Hello doctor bills.  Hello concussion.

We kept cheering for her to remember.  She didn't.  Her memory did return about an hour or so later.  But we were E.R.-bound long before then.  Scary stuff.

She was concentrating, but she couldn't call things to mind.

One of the most potent condemnations of God's people in the Old Testament was that they didn't remember.  They didn't remember what God had done at the Red Sea.  They didn't remember the manna from heaven.  They didn't remember the laws on the tablets.  They didn't remember His promises to them about a land.  And on and on I could go.

Before I go casting stones (or before you grab yours), let's *ahem* remember that we are good forgetters too.  Forgetting that it wasn't the blood of bulls and rams that saved us, but treating it lightly by loving sin so easily.  Forgetting that His mercy is a daily renewable quantity but our ingratitude even toward something simple like air is our living testimony that we don't believe in mercy.  And I could go on and on.

Maybe take a second.  Maybe see if His goodness and faithfulness and mercy toward you haven't been present.

Maybe see His love.  I think that's one of the reasons the cross is so graphic.  If I forget His love, all I have to do is look at that horror captured in a historic moment.

Maybe I can remember better.  Maybe you can too.  Maybe that will prompt us both to meaningful praise.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...