My husband, Gary, was a helicopter and fixed-wing pilot in the Army for the first nearly 20 years of our marriage. We were stationed in Colorado when he got orders to serve in Germany. It’s all a bit of a blur, those months of separation as he attended a school before we went to Germany.
Finally, it was time for the movers to come. They loaded up our belongings for transport to Germany. Well, not all our belongings. Most of our furniture and all our appliances were put into storage, waiting on our return to the states later…six years later, though we didn’t know at the time it would be that long.
Several more months went by before Gary was assigned temporary quarters. Off I went with two babies to join him in Germany. Our temp quarters were on the fourth floor of an old WW2 building. The laundry room was down in the basement. Our apartment was full of military furniture that had been used by who knows how many families before us.
Eventually we moved into our permanent quarters. We had a nice apartment on the top floor of our building, complete with a balcony. We called this “stairwell living.” We had some of our furniture but most of what we had was sturdy, used military grade furnishings. Nothing fancy, for sure, but usable.
All of us wives were in the same boat. When we would get together, we often found ourselves talking about the furniture we had back in the states. One missed her living room set, another her big hutch and her nice dishes, or the beautiful bedroom suit one had bought shortly before getting their orders for Germany.
We would laugh and carry on, but all of us did miss what we used to have.
There are times we all miss what used to be.
The parents who are no longer here on earth. Or who are here but not here, and we care for them as though they were our children.
The spouse gone way too soon.
The child that we never dreamed we would lose.
The empty house when all the children are gone.
The healthy body we or our loved one had but is now ravaged by illness or slowed by age.
The friendships damaged beyond repair.
The ministries that once were but are now gone.
We all have our lists, don’t we? The memories flood in sometimes, and we can say with David in Psalm 42:3-4:
“My tears have been my food day and night…these things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.”
Memories of what was but is no more.
“Sometimes we can remember a ‘before,’ which is no longer present in the ‘now,’ doesn’t seem recoverable, and it saddens and distresses us.” (Dale Davis)
But David doesn’t end it there.
“O my God, my soul is in despair within me; THEREFORE I remember You from the land of the Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.” (v. 6)
No matter his location or how far he was from the familiar paths of his life, David remembered WHO he needed to remember in the middle of his despair.
He remembered God.
God my rock, David said.
God my hope.
God my help.
God is present with me today, in my now, just as He was in my past.
All of you who follow Christ can say the same thing. Yes, memories can be a blessing, but they can also bring pain and depression.
O God, help us to not only remember what was, but to remember Who IS!
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not.
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.
Great is Thy faithfulness,
Great is Thy faithfulness.
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above.
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
Great is Thy faithfulness.
Great is Thy faithfulness.
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide.
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
Blessings all mine with 10,000 beside.
He Said What?! 