Remember

September 11 found me sitting in church watching a video about the events of ten years ago. I can remember back to the staff lounge at Otter Lake Elementary School. I was in the first weeks of my student teaching. An individual came in to interrupt our whole staff meeting; the tv was switched on and our worlds shifted. The video that was shown in church focused on what we as a country learned during the days and months that followed that tragedy. One phrase that caught my attention: "We learned to...remember our losses"

It got me thinking...is it always best to remember those things we've lost. I feel sometimes that the list of things I've lost could stretch for pages and pages. Is it really good to hold on and remember. I know there's value in feeling loss and not ignoring the pain that often accompanies it. On the other hand, I believe it's God's grace that allows us to let go and continue to press ahead. If I were to need to constantly live with the memory of each loss, I think the weight of them might crush me.

Perhaps as individuals we struggle at different points along the spectrum. Some of us hate to face the loss we've faced and fight to erase it from memory. Others live so deeply in the loss that other dimensions of life dim and all is consumed in that memory. I think either end is extreme. Like many pieces of life, I imagine the balance in the middle is found only with grace of God and the ability to live balanced takes practice.

As I think about the losses in my own life on both sides of the ocean, I pray that God would bring healing and that my life would be transformed because of those experiences...that instead of getting stuck in those events, God would enable me to continue to walk ahead in faith.