Remembering With GodSample

Remembering That Our Brokenness Is Redeemed

To engage our memories as I am suggesting means that we need to wrestle with memories that reveal the darkest parts about humanity, ourselves, and in the way we perceive God. 

Jesus’ own life comes to the front here, reminding us that if He can say of the bread “This is my body” (Mark 14:22), then our lives are both taken and blessed but also broken. 

While Jesus lays down His own life to experience brokenness, we do not have to hunt down brokenness. It comes unbidden. In His hospitality of presence, Jesus enters into a constant stream of human experience—brokenness of heart, mind, soul, and strength. 

As we remember the life of Jesus on earth, we see a story and script that is adequate to deal with suffering. He who held resurrection as an ace under the table (John 11:17-44) also wept over the need to use that card to retrieve the life of Lazarus. The suffering Jesus experienced places suffering in a bigger context, namely, that to take on our life Jesus brought God’s life into the realm of biology. 

Redemption of our memories takes place when, in the presence of Jesus, they are no longer seen as boundaries but as plot points in a greater drama: the drama of being taken and blessed, loved and longed for by God from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). 

Engage with a particularly difficult memory today, one where you can clearly see your own brokenness or the brokenness of others. As you pray, bring to mind the bread that Jesus breaks and then says, “This is my body.” How does the image of Jesus’ broken body impact the way you see your memory of brokenness? How does it bring new questions, healing, or perspective? 

Adapted from As I Recall: Discovering the Place of Memories in Our Spiritual Life. Copyright ©2019 by Casey Tygrett. Used by permission. For more information, please visit http://www.ivpress.com/as-i-recall.