Will I remember these things in heaven?
I’m guessing yes
I learned the lesson a few years ago, but it didn’t stick. When I was a kid, I remember on a few different occasions my dad taking my brother and I down to an Indianapolis Colts game. They were always preseason games, so we would leave by the end of the 3rd quarter when the back-ups came in to play.
And that was only part of the tradition. Each trip would end the same way…just down Illinois Street in downtown Indy at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place called “Acapulco Joe’s.” I loved that place. So it was a no-brainer when I took my son to a preseason game two years ago that we’d hit up the same place. And it was awful. As it turned out, what I really liked about the joint was the memories, and I should have left it as such.
Fast-forward to three days ago. It’s Friday night and my wife and I are driving together down to Bloomington, Indiana. My church was having a marriage getaway weekend, and even though we could only be there for one night of it, we were determined to have at least a few hours away from the chaos of our routine. And on the drive I saw this:
Childhood memories came flooding back. It was a routine whenever we would take the 2-hour drive as a family to visit my grandparents, we would stop for pizza at Mr. Gatti’s. It was incredibly good – best pizza I remember existing except for maybe Godfather’s.
So, on the way home from our one-night getaway, I talked Jen into stopping at Gatti’s for lunch on Saturday. That picture above was taken on our way into the restaurant. There are no pictures taken afterwards because we were both trying to forget what happened there even though our gastro-intestinal turmoil was determined to remind us. I have a feeling that moving forward, even the faint whiff of pizza sauce will trigger PTSD. Memories best left as memories.
As I drove home and then later that evening drove the “porcelain school bus” (if you aren’t picking up on the metaphor there, let me know and I can help), I started thinking more about memories and my long-standing belief that we won’t remember our lives here once we are in heaven. I can’t say for sure when that belief settled in on me, but I do know that for the longest time I was convinced it was biblically sound.
“There’s no pain in heaven,” I reasoned. And while our earthly memories are full of great moments (like Gatti’s and Acapulco Joe’s as a kid), they are also interspersed with great pain (like Gatti’s and Acapulco Joe’s as an adult). In heaven, I’m spared of those hurtful, difficult memories that are forever now entangled with the good (because I just couldn’t leave well enough alone). The prophet Isaiah makes that very clear:
Isaiah 65
17 For behold, I create new heavens and new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.
Like I said, open and shut.
Or is it? Read that passage in a larger context; in fact, just look one verse before that one:
Isaiah 65
16 For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes.
We’re talking about God here. The God who made the world and everything in it. The God who made it all merely by speaking and thinking it into existence. Why am I so convinced that He would be incapable of untangling my bad memories from my good ones? He who can place my sin as far as the east is from the west can surely do the same with my past troubles.
Moreover, does it not seem far more consistent with what Scripture teaches about the coming resurrection to believe that our memories will be cleansed, restored, healed, and redeemed like the rest of us? If I’m getting a redeemed mind that functions as God always intended, if I’m getting a redeemed body that is capable of doing things that right now I can only imagine, if I’m getting redeemed relationships that sees me not losing my earthly brother and sister, but gaining millions more, does it not stand to reason that I’ll be getting redeemed memories as well?
I believe God when He promises that in what He has prepared for me, “the old order of things has passed away.” That means the sorrow I experienced here on earth will haunt me no more. In their place will be new recollections how God sustained me, filled me, and blessed me by His servants here on earth – even when I didn’t realize it was happening.
The few pictures we see in Scripture of those taken into heaven, they know others and they are known by others. Having not been there myself, I suppose I can’t know for certain yet. But these days, the weight of the evidence bears down heavily in my mind that one day my grandparents, parents, brother and sister, wife, and kids will all be sharing a long list of great memories with one another.
I’m also betting Mr. Gatti’s will be scrubbed from that list.
ICYMI…
If you remember the parable of the unmerciful servant and are interested in seeing a modern day example of what Jesus was talking about, I made a video I think you should see…
Also, a couple stories I wrote that I’d love for you to check out if you’ve got a minute:
I’m thinking we will still have free will in Heaven and we will have some way to remember breaking creation by misusing our free will so we don’t do it again.