Memories

For anyone who is interested in seeing an earlier picture of my biological mother you can go to my brother's blogsite. He posted what I believe was my mother's wedding photo. What seems almost uncanny to me is how much I see mom when I look into the mirror. I am only about a year older than when my mother died - she was 57 - so many of my memories are of her around my present age. My brother was pondering about so many similarities between him and our dad. I know I have so many similarities between my mom and me. Some I know God needs to continue to change. Some inherited tendencies, however, I feel God is using as stepping stones to lift me closer into communion with Him. As my brother commented, I believe there are times when it is good to go into memory lane. I have gotten frustrated at times with some of those trips, but just the same there may be value in some trips in that direction, especially when God is in charge of the journey.

I think some of my frustrations with memory lane trips come when people are not willing to 'let go' of aspects of memories. My perception is that I am dealing with some folks in that catagory at present. In the past a friend had won some horse 'prizes'. She had some 'prize winning' cats and some 'pet goats'. So now, she still 'hangs on' to a horse, goats, and cats even though they seem to be literally 'eating up' a whole lot of her income. But memory lane is very much in place and she can't bear to 'leave' - or at least so it seems at times to me.

Add to that the mental filters that I and others have acquired from our 'memories' and it can produce a very interesting 'outcome'. One day my brother and I were talking on the phone and I happened to make a comment and used a Bible verse to 'back it up'. He asked me why I thought the way I had just stated. We went to the Bible verse and looked at it together in context and I realized that my belief was not true. As I released that particular 'lie' so that God could remove it, I began to realize more and more the detrimental effects it had been having on my whole life. Simply put, I believed in 'peace at all cost' - if necessary even to being like a 'doormat' or less just to 'preserve' what I thought was 'peace'. That filter came from my past - memory lane if you please - but it has been a real joy to let go of that lie and be set free from the fear and shame that often attended that lie. Jesus has been working on showing me some other 'incorrect filters' (many of them lies) that were imbedded in my thinking over the years - memory lane - and as I choose to release them to Him, He cleanses me and has been showing me some awesome pictures of Himself that I can copy as well.