March 17

Isaiah 49:8-15

Memory is a fickle thing. I am reminded of this almost every day. I forget to pick up something from the store. Yet I remember lines from a movie I saw more than 20 years ago. I forget the name of someone I recently met. Yet I remember a linebacker on my Denver Broncos from the mid 1970s. I forget what year our family last visited my relatives in the Midwest. Yet I remember the words of a song from my college days. I seem to remember the oddest things very well. My memory, as I am reminded regularly by my wife and daughters, is a very fickle thing.

The reading from Isaiah provides such wonderful images of an all-loving God. Isaiah says we should sing for joy because the “Lord has comforted his people.” We should break forth into singing because God “will have compassion on his suffering ones.” I certainly need God’s comfort and compassion, but what really struck a chord with me from the reading is that while everyone forgets things, God states emphatically “I will not forget you.”

As I go about my daily life there seem to be times I need to be comforted, times I need compassion, and times I don’t need too much of anything. In all of those times, though, God is there to say, “I remember you.” To remember something is to give it value. I remember my anniversary, my wife’s and daughters’ birthdays, the faces of my parents and sisters, because they are important to me. They have value in my life. Because God remembers me, I know I am important to God. In fact, so important that God offers me all of those other wonderful things like comfort, compassion, and steadfast love.

One of my favorite Gospel stories is of the Prodigal Son. I like to think of the father in that story as the one who remembers. The son goes off into the world, lives it up, and seems to have forgotten all about his family and life back home. But I picture the father constantly hoping for the return of his son and, most importantly, never forgetting the son. The memory of the son seems to be at the front of the father’s mind even as the son appears in the distance, returning home.

How fortunate we are to have such a loving God who says to us, “I love you, I will comfort you, I will care for you, and I will not forget you.”

Joel Tjornehoj