A memory came out of the blue the other day. The image concerned a girl, Sabina, who was in my class in high school. She was Italian. I think her family had a market garden. Her mother couldn’t speak English and Sabina had to go everywhere with her, even to the doctor.
Even as a 12-year-old, when she and I were new to high school, she had the look of an elderly Italian lady. She wore her cardigan over her shoulders, she had earrings (the rest of us didn’t in those days!) and she spoke in a manner that was far older than her years. Sabina did not have many friends, she wasn’t the kind of girl to whom one warmed. There was a reserve about her. Her lunch, though immaculately packed, was different to ours too.
Now the image that haunts me is this. I can see her in our classroom, she was sitting not far from me and she was in trouble. I don’t remember why, but I saw her go back to her seat and pull out a perfectly ironed handkerchief and discreetly wipe her eyes. Nothing to draw attention to herself, I realise now she was trying desperately to keep in control. My hard, young heart figured she deserved whatever it was and I left it at that.
Today however, I can see what I didn’t then: a poor young girl caught between two cultures and unable to relate properly to either. A lonely girl, who ached to be understood. A student from a little primary school where the standard was not as high as the school she was now attending, which promised more challenges for her. An adolescent largely dealing with life on her own. How much it would have meant to her if I had gone up at recess time and talked to her about nothing in particular, just acknowledged her.
The memory haunted me and I felt powerless to do anything. But then it came to me. With God there is no time, it is all one. It is not 1962 for God. It is now. Sabina is hurting now and God too sees the young girl wiping her eyes and hiding her pain. Today I can ask God to do for her what I did not, and be for her what I was not, back then. I can ask God to reverse the injury of those days, touch her loneliness, explain the cultural war inside her and bless her with abundant and loving friends. All is far from lost!
Still there is more. We just don’t carry around memories of what we have done that was wrong or ill advised. We, like Sabina, carry deep within, memories of hurt inflicted, trauma endured, poor and indeed sometimes negligent guidance, or lack of it. All of which has shaped the ways in which we deal with life now. Ask anyone who spent their childhood in war-torn countries and they will soon tell you about traumatic memories.
This is where prayer, being with God, is once again so important. Prayer in whatever way you practise it, will cradle your heart, and pour healing balm on the sorest part of your being. And like all good healing, you won’t necessarily know right away that it is happening. Prayer seeps into the part of you that needs filling; it uncovers and companions the cracks we sometimes hide from the rest of the world. It reveals yourself to yourself. You were not made to live half a life, or to walk through life with a limp; “I came that you may have life and have it to the full,” Jesus said (Jn 10:10). With prayer in your life you will discover that memories are only inviting gateways for the Spirit of God to work.
We are always in the memory of God. He never tires of remembering us and wonderfully, nothing is hidden from him. His memories of us are more of those gateways that bring us healing and wholeness, if we allow him. Why not remind ourselves of this during the coming week?
We can simply say with the Good Thief, “Remember me.” Every time we do it will be the echo of what God is at that very instant saying to our souls: “Remember Me.” Life is so much sweeter and more whole when we remember God.