Ever tried to forget something? Ever notice that no matter how hard you attempt to push something out of your mind, it seems to be lodged there? I have often wondered why painful, distasteful, disgraceful things that happened to me over the years seem to be embedded in the recesses of my memory.

Then I realized something. If I didn’t have a memory, I would be in a great deal of trouble. I would forget who my husband was. In fact, I would even forget that I was married. I would be driving down the road and forget where I lived. I would forget to brush my teeth. My clothes would always be dirty, because I would forget to wash them. And even if I did remember, I would forget how the washing machine worked……let alone what it looked like. So memory is really a good thing.

But at times memories are not so good. Especially the bad memories. They have a way of hanging out in our brains, defining who we were, are, and will become. These are the memories we need help with. And fortunately, God has a plan for these memories. Forgive them! Not forget……but forgive. Forgive the people, places, circumstances in the recesses of your mind that have caused you the most pain.

I remember meeting an elderly woman once who had a very painful experience in her past. She shared with me that she thought she had forgiven the individual who caused her so much agony and grief, yet she still entertained thoughts about her childhood ordeal. As I sat there listening to her, God put on my heart to tell her to start living like she had forgiven this individual. I believe she had forgiven. Problem was, she simply hadn’t been living like she had forgiven.

God designed us to forgive. Forgiveness is the essence of his character. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:32, that we are to “forgive one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” Pretty simple. Forgive others the same way God has forgiven us. And just how does God forgive? In Isaiah 43:25 God said, “I alone am the one who blots out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.”
It isn’t that God can’t remember our sins. It’s that he chooses NOT to remember them. And that’s how we are to live. The memory of our past will always be there. We must make the conscious decision by the grace and strength of God to forgive that memory and live like we have forgiven it.

Somehow our bitterness makes us feel we are justified. But in reality bitterness robs us of something we all really need……..wholeness. We can’t be whole unless we give all of ourselves to Christ. As long as we lock bitterness inside us, we keep a part of us from Christ and we are not whole. Make peace with your past, so it won’t screw-up your present……or your future.