Wednesday, January 24, 2018

A Lesson in Re-Membering
By Brita Crouse

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.”


It’s a cold November morning. The sun has yet to make an appearance and all signs of life are quiet except for the few, like me, out on the road. I drive faster than I should, but I’m realizing how precious time is. I arrive and walk into a somber house, finding family members sleeping, curled up closely to a great man in his final moments.

So I assume the role of watchman and I savor the stillness and let them rest. I write and I try to be thankful. I pause and watch him, monitor his breathing - - in and out and in and…out and in and out - - acknowledging he is now only a sliver of who I know him to be. I write until my ink-stained hand is sore and my eyes grow tired. I finish with: I am thankful for the ability to hold onto hope. And the heaviness of it all weighs on me. So I switch rooms, blackest coffee in hand, and open the Word, craving its healing.

“I am the [wo]man who has seen affliction…He pierced my heart…He has filled me with bitter herbs…My soul is downcast within me.” [1]

The words of the lamenter reverberate within.

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.[2, emphasis added]

I have hope?

God’s breathed Word says so.

“This fallen world never stops dis-membering who we are. We’re all breaking a bit more every day…And there, even as we ache, is the gentle whisper of God. With the quiet urging to give thanks anyways…But why in the world give thanks?…Because we remember how He blesses, loves us, when we recollect His goodness to us, we heal - - we re-member. In the remembering to give thanks, our broken places are re-membered - - made whole. When we re-member all His blessings, we re-member all our fractures, and in giving thanks in the assembly it’s our very souls that re-assemble.” [3]

Sometimes it hurts and life dis-members us, breaks us down.

But there is joy in giving thanks, in having hope… in the re-membering.


GOING DEEPER:
1.  How are you re-membering and giving thanks despite your circumstances?

FURTHER READING:

Brita recently moved back to her home state of Wisconsin where she works as an Elementary School Counselor. She and her family have attended Oakwood for 20 years.

[1] Lamentations 3:1, 13, 15, 20
[2] Lamentations 3:21-23
[3] Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011) 172.