Episode 163 - Memories

 Memory is a strange thing. Sometimes a distant memory of something long forgotten can most suddenly be brought into vivid recollection as clear as if it had happened the day before. And often it is the simplest of things which bring it back; a song, a smell, or a story. This week for me it was a more unusual suspect which brought back a time which I thought I had completely forgotten; a tin of Vaseline. Having been knocked to the floor, it bounced to a standstill. As it did, I was transported to the wooden floors of a lounge at All Nations College where I studied when I joined MAF. It was a dark winters evening almost six years ago. I was surrounded by the chatter and laughter of friends. In the centre of the room a dear friend and I sat on the floor, with a chair behind each of us and a tin of Vaseline between us. Why? Well because we had just invented floor hockey, a game which would keep us thoroughly entertained for the next hour or so as our friends watched on bewilderedly.

It was such a happy time and such a wonderful memory, but in the aftermath of remembering I found myself asking one simple question; how had I forgotten this? It was so precious, to have let go of it, to have lost it seemed so careless and reckless. I wondered what other treasured memories had I lost and didn’t even know? This thought upset me for a while, which is strange, because the actual loss of such memories never hurt me, I never even knew that I had forgotten them. Yet the thought that I might have lost something I don’t know about did. It was that thought which caused me to realise that I was looking at it all wrong. The memory was never lost. If it had been, then how could I have remembered it? But if I was always holding onto it, I would be living in the past leaving less room for the present. In not holding on so tight to these special times grants them the freedom to come and go as they please, not lost just roaming wild. And God always seems to know when to bring each one to mind at just the right time and fill me with joy of times gone by and hope for more such times in the future.