Forgetting

What does it mean to forget? Is forgetting something we do by choice or is it more? I heard somewhere that we humans have a hormone that makes us forget intense pain. That this is why women will have more than one child. That makes sense and explains why my sister has eight kids. If this hormone is designed to help us forget physical pain I wonder what it is that helps us forget the emotional pain we go through or the pain we go through cause of bad choose we have made. I only bring this up because it seems that forgetting is too easy for us. How many people have climbed out of painful experiences only to forget what it was like while in the midst of the struggle. We see this every day. the man who overcame poverty and is now successful walks into the coffee shop to buy his $6.00 latte only to stick his nose up at the family with a beat-up car broken down in the parking lot. He has forgotten what it's like to be in need. I know I am guilty of driving by the car that is stalled on the side of the road saying, “I would help you push it buddy if I had time or didn't have this bad knee.” Meanwhile not long ago that was me just wishing someone would stop and help. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think so. The greatest and gravest of human flaws is forgetting. Forgetting what it's like to be hurting, to be hungry, to be lost. When we forget we lose what it really means to be human. Or we at least forget that part of our humanity that was meant to be divine. This is everywhere throughout history. Moses forgot and it cost him the promised land. It's so easy to forget. If we forget then we don't have to be responsible; responsible for our past mistakes or helping others through those mistakes. What I'm saying if I'm saying anything is that forgetting is an offense against ourselves; a terrorist act against the soul of humanity. We must remember what it was like to doubt and to rage against God. Because if we don't we cannot help anyone, we cannot help this fallen world we live in find hope. We won't be able to help them find Christ. We have all hurt and cried, we have all accused God of being heartless. What the world needs even more than a answer is for us to say, “I have been there, I know what you’re feeling, I remember.”