healing on Memory

Author David Seamands once wrote, “Children are the best recorders but the worst interpreters.” I remember a lot about being a kid. I remember colors and moments, arguments and smells… Though my me...

Barbara Brown Taylor recounts her first experience with caving, the exploration of caves that are not prepared or made easily accessible for inexperienced explorers. Her guides gave her a bit of helpf...

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope ...

Repentance resulting from self-examination is a lifelong endeavor, occasionally surfacing in the public or private act of confession as an act of “courageous memory” in recalling one’s past.

Leadership Trauma is Taking a Toll The word is out. According to Barna, as of March 2022, the percentage of pastors considering quitting full-time ministry within the past year sits at 42 percen...

“Shall we never never get rid of this Past? … It lies upon the Present like a giant’s dead body.”

And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence.

It is not the experience of today that drives us mad; it is the remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday.

Recovery is not a process we can will, but consists of experiencing many small deaths, the passing of significant anniversaries, until our identity is solid and natural in the pronoun “I.”

There are two golden days in the week, upon which, and about which, I never worry—two carefree days, kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension. One of these days is Yesterday; Yesterday, with its ...

In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my...

“Atonement was powerful; it was the lock on the door you closed against the past.”

Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart Could have recovered greenness?

I see my past drinking as a behavioral problem, a learned response to dealing (or not dealing) with emotional pain and stress. Once I achieved the excavation of my wounds, I no longer lived with the s...

Sometimes we have to “step over” our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there...

Merciful God, in baptism you promise forgiveness and new life, making us part of the body of Christ. We confess that we remain preoccupied with ourselves, separated from one another. We cling to destr...

Context This week’s lectionary text from Mark encompasses two distinct healing narratives, each of which has plenty of material for its own sermon. So the first decision for the preacher should be wh...

Context This week’s lectionary text from Mark encompasses two distinct healing narratives, each of which has plenty of material for its own sermon. So the first decision for the preacher should be wh...

Leave the broken, irreversible past in God's hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

In his book The Logic of the Spirit, James Loder talks about a woman with whom he had been in a therapeutic relationship for years. This woman’s underlying issue seemed to be a complete sense of rejec...

Preaching Commentary The Touch of Jesus The highlighted texts from Matthew 9 include Jesus’ call of Matthew, the tax collector, as well as two accounts of healings (the woman with the discharge of ...

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light fo...

No grieving; no healing. Know grieving; know healing.

Father–nothing escapes your notice, is beyond your care or too hard for you to take on, whether it concerns nations or individuals. You have a heart for all the world–not just our little piece of it. ...

Almighty God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You tell us to pray with thanksgiving...and we do; giving thanks for Your daily provision and care, for the birth of a child, for new jobs and new friends, fo...

How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

The people who have been made larger by suffering are brave enough to let parts of their old self die. Down in the valley, their motivations changed. They’ve gone from self-centered to other-centered.

"Here is your brother”, he [Aslan] said, "and-there is no need to talk to him about what is past.”