It's hard being sentimental...

 I don’t want to be sentimental anymore. The decisions about the stuff we collect are wearying.

I’ve got boxes of stuff that are relics of time gone by. Boxes and boxes. Do I really need them? I agonize over whether to keep so many items. They are a testament to a moment that was important to me. But I fear something will be lost if I get rid of the relics.

From my youth, I have wanted to preserve my life experiences, those moments and days where you see the glory of God, are suffused with the love of family and friends, and fulfilled with the goodness of living. I didn’t want to forget any of it.

And I have been passionate about keeping history. My history, American history, local history, extended family history. A firm believer that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, I believed that a reference library of people’s experiences would be security against unwise decisions and falling into practices or misapprehensions that have been proven, by others’ sad experience, to be disastrous.

So I have kept a lot of stuff. Stuff that reminds me; stuff that reassures me; stuff that my descendants could learn from.

But I’ve noticed that even with historical wisdom readily available to reference, we rarely heed it. We carry on in our human depravity and fight the same battles as the generations before us. We prove out the principles that have been learned in the past, but in our own way. And regardless of the wise references that we ignore, God is gracious to bring us to the same conclusions, generation after generation.

As much as I have wanted to save my descendants the pain of learning hard lessons, I can’t. It seems we learn them best by struggling. Truth be told, my desire to save them is a desire to save me – from having to witness the hurt that comes from learning things the human way.

This does not mean that I won’t take to heart the instruction to “guard your life diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your mind and heart all the days of your life. Teach them to your children and your children’s children…” (Deuteronomy 4:9) But I am going to drop the expectation that a stash of historical wisdom will be a security for my family in the days to come.

God is at work. He doesn’t need my stacks of books and papers. I cannot circumvent an individual’s wrestling with God by pointing out a passage from history that illustrates the end result. And history – the huge and epic struggles and battles of good vs. evil are, at the heart, all about whether we will obey God, or not, in the moment we are living.

It’s interesting too that as we age, we lose our memory. It becomes difficult to recall. The specifics of the beautiful moments fade into a blurry wash that just leaves us with a feeling that joy was present. And isn’t that enough? If at the end we only know that God is at work, and He has been so good to us, isn’t that sufficient?

I see now that the rumpled papers of my children’s art creations, the photos of life events, the narratives of history are things I cling to because I am afraid that one day life will not be as good as it was then. I’m trying to stave off sadness instead of celebrating joyfulness. I am not trusting that good comes from even the most painful times. It is a rare instance when the knowledge of history saves someone. I’ll leave to God the cautionary tale my loved ones should hear. He knows what it should be.

So I am not going to worry over those objects of sentimentality anymore. Things come and go. They are not sacred. They are not a talisman of protection. God will remind me of what I need to remember. I will celebrate each day, trust that God is working when we willfully wrestle with Him and enjoy my memories as monuments of His goodness.

I hope that, better than vintage objects and records from my past, my descendants see in my character the things I want them to remember.