Memories

Andy asked if he could pursue me, with the intention of marriage, on August 28, 2003. I was sitting in my 10x10 dorm room in Charlottesville, shoved as far against the lone window as I could get to keep my cell phone coverage from disappearing during a rather important conversation, heart hammering, and gleefully (if not horribly un-romantically) replying: "sure, I'm up for that." It's funny to think we had no wireless Internet, FaceTime, Skype, Facebook, or free texting plans then. Nobody tweeted or updated their relationship status, iPods were just appearing on the market, and organic food was for crazy hippies who lived in communes.

I look back on that year as one of the best and hardest in my life. I flew red-eyes almost once a month just to see Andy, I completed a rigorous graduate program at a tough school, and I have never been so lonely, nor close to God in quite the same way. It was one of the hardest years of my life, but I cherish it, and I love to remember it.

Such memories are important. They are part of our story. God loves to retell what He has done, and He loves to tell of what He will do. I think we will spend some of our eternity crafting poems and stories and songs of what was and is and is yet to come. And though memories are meant to bless and remind and give hope and surety of the promises - amongst many things - they can turn against us. It should be no surprise, as the greatest blessings and gifts are certainly the enemy's choice battle ground to twist towards destructive ends. 

Only lately was I convicted of this point as I was driving home from teaching. The feel of the day reminded me of the week before our wedding, and a song from that season of my life was playing. I let my mind wander back and enjoy and rest in that moment, remembering being younger, thinner, and happier.

And I stopped.

Happier? And it all hit me then, how often I wander back to those moments in my heart: when I was single and could do whatever I wanted, when we were newly married and growing and living and learning so many things and it was all an adventure, even when I only had Merian. I stay there too long, a historical revisionist dwelling in a false past to avoid a challenging present.

And I realized these are such precious gifts that God has given me - what a story He is writing for me - and the moment I stay too long in that memory and feel an ounce of nostalgia, the joy is ruined, and in its place is dissatisfaction. I can rest in the memory, but I cannot linger. I have to forcibly scoot my thoughts forward, reminding myself that now I get to go home and enjoy three little lives and laugh and make play dough snakes. I have three souls to pour into. The river is wider and fiercer. It's harder and more tiring, but is not the gospel goal harder and better in His strength, not easier and better in our own? 

On that humid Friday evening nine years ago in Virginia, how pale and one-dimensional my life really was. Eight years ago when we said "I do" as He held back the rain, it was only a beginning. How full it now is, but such a realization and acceptance does not happen naturally (yet). Now I must make those mental feet move, and be fully and joyfully present in the now, and even one step forward, into the weight of eternal things. One year was great. Five was even better. Eight is harder, more refining, more exhausting, more exhilarating, more thrilling, more joyful.