S05E041, Remember! Andy B 2 Minute Video
There will always be parts of our lives we’d rather forget – those moments when something traumatic happens to us, or those times when we’ve done something that may have ruined the life of someone else, perhaps permanently.
Those moments define us, and they can be moments we’d rather not ever have to remember.
But, having undergone a 15 month of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - for childhood trauma - I find it fascinating that the way to help someone process that trauma is to enable them to relive that trauma, and yet remain in control of that memory they are reliving. That control was lacking, hence the therapy approach.
Those 15 months were incredibly exhausting, but that process of remembering – in a safe environment – meant I could finally move on something I had had no choice over suffering.
Remembering the pain was a literal part of my healing!
When our daughter died, aged just 10 weeks, it was a time that truly took our breath away as we sought to process what was happening - that we could not control. And, yet, it was also the birth of our determination to seize every moment and live life to the full to the very extent of our abilities. That led to a journey I wouldn’t wish to have missed, as much as I still miss our precious daughter - Magdi. God redeemed that pain into something truly wonderful.
We forget the past at our peril!
Sometimes remembering can be painful, but blocking or attempting to delete the past actually removes parts of our past from us, and our we are the products of our past. We don’t have to relive those traumatic moments with a smile! But, they made us who we are today.
If you have some past pain that you can not process, talk to Jesus about it. He endured a trauma we will never have to match or meet or face, and all because He loves us and wanted to give us the option of Heaven as our final destination.
And, that is something worth remembering!
Just a thought...
Andy B
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[00:00:00] So another Andy B 2 Minute Video and the, the title for this one is really, really simple. It's, Remember.
[00:00:14] We've just gone through Remembrance Sunday, Armistice day on Friday, Remembrance Day. The the day, the one time a year when we make a special point of remembering those who've died and fallen fighting for our freedom all around the world.
[00:00:33] Today, we think of the crisis in Ukraine, with Russia and Ukraine at war with each other. People are dying and it's tragic.
[00:00:43] We forget the past at our peril. We need to remember what's gone before us.
[00:00:51] It's easy looking over your life and thinking, there are parts of my life I just, I would rather forget, you know, I had a, a bad hair day and, you know, we can be quite fickle about these things. But [00:01:00] there's more important and more serious stuff.
[00:01:01] There are times, perhaps we were addicted to drugs or alcohol, and we had serious issues. Maybe we caused a divorce and we, we caused tremendous pain and hurt. Maybe we're involved in embezzlement and we've destroyed the lives of many. There are times in our life, however lighthearted we might look at it or however serious that is, that we would choose to forget, but we forget the past at our peril!
[00:01:28] One of the things that I, I find really saddening actually was kind of this woke culture. Even that's a stupid word! But it's this idea of, you know, being really trendy and like with it, with it and all the rest of it. And part of that was getting rid of statues because, well, that person did something. We didn't like what they did, so we're gonna get rid of the statue.
[00:01:46] And sometimes, some of those statues, they're actually wrong than what they believed. That doesn't help. Some of the time. Yeah, they might have done some bad, but actually they did some good as well. And when we start deleting history, we do it our [00:02:00] peril. We do it at the cost of our children's children.
[00:02:03] When you look at what happened in Nazi Germany in the Second World War, a lot of that was people who didn't want to remember what had happened previously. And that's the tragedy. When we forget the past, we allow it to be repeated.
[00:02:18] It doesn't mean to say we've gotta celebrate what was evil. Evil is evil. But it does mean that we don't forget the past, because what's happened in the past is what's made humanity what it is today is, is what's made us who we are today.
[00:02:31] I lost my daughter when she was 10 weeks in the womb. We lost our daughter. It's a tragedy. I've never forgotten that. But that bad memory is a good thing too, because it made us live every day for itself.
[00:02:46] So don't fear the past because the past makes us who we are.
[00:02:50] The loss of my daughter while sad, actually it helped Jo and I and our family, we take ,every day and we make the most outta every day. Nothing is ever wated.
[00:02:59] [00:03:00] So don't just throw away the past.
[00:03:02] Remember!
[00:03:04] Just a thought.