REMEMBERING GOD

REMEMBERING GOD

by Brenda L. Agee

^"Then they remembered that God was their rock,

And the Most High God their Redeemer."

Psalm 78:35 (NKJV)

          I've often had people ask me, "What is your earliest memory?"  I don't think I could answer that question exactly.  I remember a lot of things about my early childhood, but my earliest memory?  A lot of my memories have nothing to do with age - like getting to church early enough on a Sunday morning to run down the center aisle to the front rows where sat the little ladies, all grandmothers, with their deeply wrinkled faces; freshly applied rouge; and silver hair either pulled back in a bun at the nape of their neck, or freshly coiffed into curls, and brushed away from their faces.  They were beautiful to me and I loved them.  They showered me with hugs and smiles and always asked if I was going to Sunday school to learn about Jesus.  They knew I was and yet their weekly question made me even more excited to be there.  I knew they loved me and because of it, I knew Jesus loved me, too.   It was a weekly ritual of love from both sides which continued for years and my age didn't matter.

          I also remember seeing Aunt Rose after church on Sunday mornings.  She was the perfect depiction of a handsome woman and seemed quite ancient, although I'm sure she wasn't.  She was both mysterious and proud with her very-erect posture, proper smile, the fox fur which draped around her shoulders, and her occasional gentle pats on the top of my head.  To my young mind, that fox seemed to watch me with mild amusement as it held its' own tail in its' mouth.  I gingerly reached out to pet the fur upon occasion, but more often I held back not knowing what the seemingly well-behaved little fox would do.  I think I felt the same about both the fox fur and Aunt Rose.  But she was wonderful.

          My age didn't matter then, either.

          Oh, and if I'm going to remember and write about Aunt Rose, I really have to tell you about Aunt Ocie.  I seem to remember someone once telling me that her name was "Ocia" but I only remember her as Aunt Ocie.  Her name was pronounced Oh'-see.  It was an appropriate pronunciation because everything she ever talked about or did, should have ended with a hearty laugh as though she were saying, "Oh, see!"  She was the kind of person who went about doing everything like a little tornado.  She rushed from one room to the next.  She rushed to cook or clean.  She rushed around the church doing this and that, but I didn't quite know what she did.  She definitely rushed when she talked and at times, it even seemed like she rushed to start laughing.  I held Aunt Ocie in awe even though I wanted to laugh at everything she did.     

          However, when I left her after a visit it felt like half of my brain was out of place with the other half of my brain.  Was that just the way I saw her or was it her?  If she was so serious about what she did or said, why did she also seem so silly?  Which was she?  Finally I realized she was both.  Full of zeal, always funny, a bit trying, with a remarkable memory for detail, and a heart of gold. Aunt Ocie is worth remembering.  I still smile and say, "Oh, see!"

          Other memories are clear only because I remember the ages of my brothers or sisters.  I suppose one of my first memories was of the awful screeching noise coming from that baby who, I was told, was my new sister.  She had been placed in the crib just moments before the screeching began.  I remember having wondered where the crib had come from and why it was in my parent's bedroom.  Yet there I was, looking through the crib rails, watching that curious little thing with her scrunched up face and chubby rear-end peeking out of the diaper.  Not realizing it would hurt her I simply reached inside the crib and pinched her on the bottom.  I was probably just as shocked at her reaction as she was to the cause of her quivering new-born wail.  I didn't understand why she cried, but I instinctively knew to back away from the crib.  I know exactly how old I was.  I was three and a half years old when she was born and when my parents came running to see what had happened.

          That same sister, years later and still three and a half years younger than me, came to visit after I'd been in the hospital due to my heart.  We had lived a distance apart for too many years and events made us realize we needed each other and needed to be together.  We hugged and talked and laughed like little school girls, and not the older, mature women that society would have dictated because of our ages.  I couldn't tell you how many times we started a new sentence with the words "remember the time . . . ".  Our daughters sat and listened and laughed with us at all of our antics, and love, and silliness.  That night she slept in my bedroom and we talked and laughed until about 1:30 a.m. when there was a knock on the door.  Without hesitation, our daughters entered and teasingly chastised us, telling us it was time for all little girls to go to sleep.  I'm sure, the way I remember it, we were in the middle of a giggle when we both finally fell asleep.

          One curious realization was that although we talked about the same situations, there were times when our memories differed somewhat.  There were a few details here or there or words we were sure someone had said and yet, there would be something different for one than what was remembered by the other.  Nothing was so different that it changed the story or the meaning or the emotion we shared through it all.  Yet there were differences. 

          How important are those differences?  Were the differences or were the shared occurrences, what helped shape or make the relationship she and I have today?  I don't know.  Everything before today is gone in one sense, and yet all has brought me to this day in my life.  And I don't believe my age matters at all except for a few events, maybe.  Today I can say it is exciting to remember.  Today there is an amazement of peace and joy that has resulted from all of the things God's brought me through.  This also means that the events, good or bad, which created my memories are part of the amazement. 

          It wasn’t always like that, I know.  And too many times I've let memories flood over me as though I would drown in what I had tried to forget.  Just like Peter walking on the water toward Jesus, when he looked at the waves caused by the wind and remembered what he had already learned about the treachery of the sea, and the impossibility of a mere human conquering the water and walking on top of it, he sank and proved his memory of those lessons to be correct.  But Peter, who stopped believing for those brief seconds, suddenly remembered that Jesus was still there.  It was Peter's memory of who Jesus was that caused him to call out to our Lord and Peter was rescued. 

          He remembered.  It was at first only an event.  However, the event turned dramatic and would become a memory so vivid that Peter, and all of those in the boat, would never forget.

          We have memories of our human, worldly existence but we also have memories of experiences with God.  Is there a difference?  We can be paralyzed by a memory and still feel we are captives or we can soar in a memory that causes us to rise above everything.  We can stop where we are and continue to live in a memory with perpetual pain or at times we dance and play like children in our memories.  In the midst of a memory we can lose ourselves in either pain or joy.  Yet, God never wants us to live only in what we remember, but rather to be alive in Him every moment.      

          That's why I think there are memories of experiences with God which stay alive and vital as though they are happening again at the very moment we remember.  God is.  He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He always is.  Even when I say He was, He actually is..  You know, "I Am . . .", He said to Moses.  The experiences which stay alive are those events in which God always is.     With other types of memories I can choose how long to remember or when to move on.  But the words of God - what He has spoken - are true every moment, every second, every day of my life.  They are not words that I can choose to forget, they are not words from which I can or want to move away.  They are God, again this moment, as they were when I first heard them or had the experience with Him.  If I hadn't gone through all of this with God myself, I would think it certainly sounds confusing but it really isn't.

          Let me tell you about the first experience I had that is still my most vivid memory.  It is what I call my "today" memory because every time I remember, it is just as vivid today and it was then; it's like living the experience all over again.

          No one ever told me about what was happening when I was nearly four years old.  I spoke about it a few times with my mother when I was much older and she affirmed that it had happened but that was all and she never coached me to remember things her way.  I still see it all clearly but at the time knew very little about the danger we were in.  My parents laid a mattress on the floor in the corner of the living room, all the while saying the words "hurry" and "tornado".  They had us children lie down on the mattress but it was only when they brought in my sister who was almost eight years older than me that I began to realize something was wrong.  My sister was an invalid with hydrocephalus and couldn't walk nor even talk very much.  She knew very little and she was always in the bedroom being tended to by our mother.  But with her beside me and then daddy bringing a second mattress into the living room, I very simply but seriously asked him, "Daddy, can I ask Jesus to make the tornado go away?"  I didn't know what a tornado was, but I knew Jesus could fix it.  Daddy in his faith in and his love for God answered just as simply, "Brenda, you can ask Jesus for anything, anytime."  And as daddy laid the second mattress on top of all of us, hoping to keep us safe, I did just that.  I asked Jesus to make the tornado go away and I knew He heard me.  It was the faith of a little child. 

          A few minutes later daddy lifted the top mattress.  Talking to our mother, with tears running down his face, Daddy held my four or five month old sister, and motioned for me to come to him.  He told mama how he had stood on the front porch and watched the tornado wind its' way toward town, and that at the edge of town it lifted, tore its' path above us, and then descend again on the other side.  He knew my prayer had been answered.  For me, though, what I still remember most were the words deep within my little, faith believing heart, "I did this for you.  Remember Me!"  And I knew it was God.

          Well, I still remember, Lord!  That day my faith was set in You and I've always remembered.  I've never forgotten.  Those words, the words You spoke to me when I was not yet four years old, have resounded within me every moment of every day.  You knew that day that there would soon be events in my life that would bruise and tear my body, torture my mind, rip through my soul, and cause me agony in my spirit.  And yet, even when those things began and kept happening to me, I would run down the center aisle at church early on a Sunday morning to witness the love of Jesus Christ through the lovely little ladies.  I would sing the song "Praise Him, Praise Him, All Ye Little Children" and I knew that You heard me sing.  I would listen to my parents and grandparents talk about Jesus Christ our Lord, or pray to You because they loved You and knew You, and I would remember and know You loved me, too, God.

          Yes, all of the events of our lives shape who we are.  And yes, we can have difficulty moving away from the memories that still cause despair or worry.  But the boisterous winds and waves in our memories that may cause us to sink are only there to take our eyes off of our Lord. 

          God, You who knew that the pain of this world would be too much for us to bear, You who knew we would experience situations that our own minds couldn't comprehend, You who knew disease would destroy our bodies and our hope, also provided a way to escape that we may be able to bear it (I Cor. 10:13) through Jesus Christ, your Son.  Your Word tells us that our way to escape the pain of this world is Jesus because as He said, He is " . . . the way, the truth, and the life . . . " (John 14:6). 

          Oh, God! I look at my past and I remember all that has caused me pain; and yet through everything, even when I felt no hope, I've said, "God is my Answer."  From the time I looked up at my Daddy's tear stained face and heard You whisper to my tiny heart that I was to always remember You, I knew that somehow and some day You would bring me through all things.  Every day - every day! - You are still my only hope and my only Answer!

          And You know, God, that I still pray that I would go through all of that and more just to help one other person, one woman, know there is hope in Jesus Christ!  Please, God, give me one more to tell and then, give me another and another and another! 

          I love you, my Lord and my God!

           My sister, on the left, is STILL three and a half years younger than me!