Among my daughter's many gifts is that of photography. We also love traveling together, because we share the same desire of capturing beauty and joy whenever and wherever we find it. I never mind waiting as we stop every kilometer or so to do just that, knowing I will profit in the end, as she saves the best shots for a digital album of the trip.
On days when I feel my age is preventing me from traveling to distant places, I pull an album off the shelf and revel in the extraordinary adventures we enjoyed together…like getting our very small European rental car almost stuck between two houses on an incredibly narrow road in a tiny French village perched on a mountain top where persecuted French Huguenots hid from their captors. A man came out of his house shouting, "OH LA LA MADAME!" and proceeded to help Michèle back (uphill) out of our precarious impasse!
Nostalgia is a bittersweet emotional longing for the past, often triggered by sensory cues. Memory can filter the facts, focusing on positive recollections. It helps bridge one's past with present identity.
A perfect example of nostalgia happened this week, when Michèle tried to casually walk back into the room at the Black Forest Academy where she taught choir for twenty years. The piano and cello started to play and her voice joined dozens of others, when, as she put it:
"Every word and note on the page in front of me blurred. I put up a valiant fight, but there was no escaping the waves of memories and nostalgia washing over me. I desperately miss the time when fifty students would tumble into that same choir room for the last period of every weekday. It was herding cats in the best possible way. Most of them had never read or sung a note of ‘organized’ music in their lives, but the fun we had discovering the joy of swells and harmonies."
(From a possibly prejudiced Mom, I can attest that their perfection and emotional presentations were far above the average high school choir.)
It is a good thing for us, as we age, to look back—to recall all the good things that made us who we are today. The family memories and friendships and experiences that helped to shape us.
Throughout the Bible we are reminded to remember. “I will remember the days of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.” Ps. 77:1.
One of the beauties of aging is recalling all the ways God led us, strengthened us, walked with us through grief, made a path through the sea, delivered us in ways we could never have imagined. It is what we now call "a God thing." Our faith is strengthened with every intervention we recognize as God in our lives.
Jesus said to his disciples as He was facing death: "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me… This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
I encourage you to get out the old family albums and share some recollections from your history. Celebrate the people, places, and events that shaped you, and contemplate the challenges that did too. Maybe the Holy Spirit will remind you of something that can brighten your spirits today—or of a relationship that might need mending. The past cannot be changed, but it can be redeemed. It can make us grateful and bring joy to the present, encouraging us to move forward.
"The best is yet to come."
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