What’s your first memory of this life? Every now and then, God has a funny way of bringing certain things back to us. A certain smell, a sound, something you see… It sends us back. My earliest memory took place when I was 3 years old. I’m in my childhood home, and it’s a Sunday afternoon. Sundays were always restful and lazy in my house. We would go to church, then lunch, and finally come home to have a quiet day. My brother and I would play in the creek behind our house with the neighborhood kids. I can still hear myself squealing as my brother splashed me with cold creek water. I was a deliriously happy 3 year old.
This particular summer Sunday, however, was especially quiet. I wandered upstairs to find my mother watching TV in her bed. She smiled and opened her arms to me as I climbed in with her. At some point I put my head on her chest, and I heard a thumping sound. Rythmic and beautiful. I asked her what it was, and she smiled saying, “It’s the sound of your heart. Do you know what that is? Everyone has one- it’s what keeps us alive. You have one, too.” Something inside us was alive, making movements and making noise all the time. She took my little hand in hers and put it over my heart, and for the first time I felt my very own heartbeat. My mom laughed at me as she watched my face. I would take turns listening to mine, then listening to hers. I couldn’t believe it.
I loved listening to heartbeats ever since then. I was 6 when my little brother was born. I remember asking the nurse for her stethoscope so I could listen to his heartbeat, too. When I heard the small flutter, I knew this baby brother of mine was truly alive. It was magic.
These are the memories I think of when I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears. It was such a pleasant and magical discovery as a child. It meant life, miracles, happiness. Then you grow up. As an adult it can mean so many different things – fear, heartbreak, devastation, inspiration, despair, excitement, love, hate. Remembering memories aren’t always a happy experience anymore- memories can now haunt us, scare us, make us wish for those times again, leaving us helpless and lost in nostalgia. Memories can become bittersweet and hold an entirely different meaning than it did before.
So, when I heard the thrumming in my ears my first night in Cambodia, the memory with my mother and my baby brother came flowing back to the forefront of my mind as they did from time to time. The rise of my heart rate was telling me something. I began to breathe faster. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at my teammates sleeping. It was quiet for the first time in days, and I surrendered to my bottled emotions. I was defeated. The jig was up.
As Vietnam came to an end, I realized how much I still suffer from past mistakes, and that I had an extreme amount of growing to do. I finally understood there are realities I needed to face in order to forgive myself, and those involved. I just didn’t realize how big of an internal battle this would be, and how avoiding painful memories gave it the power to pounce out of nowhere and take you by the throat.
I simply don’t have the energy to play this game with myself anymore. You can run all you want, hide in a false self until you truly disappear… But if I fall back into old habits, evaporate myself into something I’m not, close myself off to others, then what exactly am I doing? What life am I living? What example am I setting for others, not only at home, but out here on the race? How will I be able to truly love and minister the people I am meeting as I travel? Avoiding my past has allowed it to hold me back, to shut me down, to deprive myself of my true identity and true intimacy with the Lord. I definitely expected the Lord to move me and to change me- I just didn’t prepare for how much.
I’ve come to the conclusion my old wounds have not healed. You know when a person breaks a bone and it doesn’t heal correctly, a doctor has to rebreak it so that it can heal properly? That’s where I am. The rebreaking. There are deeper, more painful wounds that I forced to heal too early. Because of this, the Lord has stepped in by rebreaking my bones. He kept on telling me, “It’s time.” And I kept saying, “Not yet.” He has stepped in regardless, and I am waving my white flag. Letting out those tears, letting out those emotions that I tried so hard to evade, the relief was sweet. My bones are rebroken. So even though it has only begun, the worst is over.
The memories I hold onto from the past teach me something different each time they resurface. My heart isn’t beating any less than it did when I was 3, if anything it’s stronger. The pulse in my ears is a reminder of this crazy gift of life that the Lord has given to me, to you, to all of us. In order to truly love who we are, who He created us to be, we can’t hate our past because it has formed who we are. And if you hate your past to the point where you are avoiding it, pretending those things didn’t happen, and you find yourself crying at night and don’t know the reason… maybe it’s time to examine your bones, too.
