Healing Painful Memories
There are memories we carry in our lives that speak of pain and hurts – pains of the past that lurk in the inner core of our soul, hurts that keep on coming back, mistakes that we committed to ourselves and to others. These memories linger even with the passage of time and disturb us in our unguarded moments; and keep on bothering us.
Phil Wagner at impactus.org website comments: “Time does not heal all wounds. Time can, in fact, make them fester like a deep infection that eventually pusses painfully. Our memories need the healing God alone to bring, or else the warring may only pause but will not end.”
Wagner also tells his own story: “I have a distinct memory of my Dad crying. My dad was not a very emotional guy, so when I saw him in tears as he walked out of a shed on the farm he grew up on, it left a mark. The family farm was up for auction, and the clan had gathered to prepare things for the crowds that would come. Something in that shed triggered a memory in my dad, and he was a blubbering mess in front of me.”
Like Wagner, I too had painful memories that had been a trauma for me. One evening I saw my father crying, sobbing like a wounded animal. He was terminated from his job because of my uncle’s betrayal. My uncle being close to the administration in their office maneuvered silently so he could replace my father in his position in favor of his son . Until now that painful scene is still etched in my memory and keeps on lurking in the river bank of my past. Though my uncle had already passed away and I had forgiven him, there are times in my moment of solitude when this painful memory would come back.
Wagner says that healing memories requires trusting the Holy Spirit’s leading. It requires naming and telling the truth about the memories that we are clinging to. We need to build trust and restore relationships with those who have wounded us or whom we have wounded. We need to do justly, rightly and restore what remains through prayer and acts of love, restitution, and sacrifice.
God forgives and remembers our sins no more, but we humans don’t so easily forget. We tell stories about inner wounds long past, and forget what we should celebrate. When our painful memories remain unhealed, we too may easily repeat those tragic and treacherous sins of the past, stirring up past wounds like a stick muddying the waters of what is otherwise a clear-flowing stream.
This is not easy work. Our memories can be scary places we simply want to avoid. In this fight we need God’s help to give us the grace of forgiveness – forgiving ourselves and those who have hurt us.
God forgives and remembers our sins no more, but we humans don’t so easily forget. We tell stories about inner wounds long past, and forget what we should celebrate.