Word prompt--PRESERVE
Five minutes to free-write about it
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This image came up in my Facebook memories the other day and I thought of it with a pang of sadness when I saw this week's prompt.
9/11/2001 was an evil day in the history of our country, and there are many memorials to preserve the memory of it, lest we forget. But I can't think of any erected to preserve the memory of 9/12, when for a brief time people put aside their differences and came together, and many even turned to God.
From the very beginning, God called us to use visual aids to help us remember. The Israelites, for instance, regularly preserved memories of His miraculous works by erecting altars of remembrance, as in Joshua 4 when the Lord had them erect a pillar of 12 stacked stones taken from the middle of the Jordan River in remembrance of how He parted its waters to enable them to cross over on dry land.
Without something to trigger our memory, we tend to forget the good things and focus on what is wrong. We forget who God is and what He has done.
Reminders of God's mercy, grace, and faithfulness can lift us up and encourage us on dark days and preserve us from the danger of forgetfulness , which leaves us vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy and opens the door to fear and doubt.
Today we take communion in remembrance of what Jesus did for us on the cross. We can also preserve memories through journaling, pictures, and keeping a written record of the ways He has worked in our lives. We also have His Word to use as our guide, and I preserve memories in it as well by writing dates next to the promises I've seen fulfilled.
