Seven-year-old Brad was in the third grade. He is sitting at his desk and suddenly there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives. He imagines the year 12 formal dinner and when all the stories are being told, someone will say, “Do you remember when Brad wet his pants in the 3rd grade?”. Brad believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, “Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help and I need it now! Five minutes from now I’m dead meat.” He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

When she gets to his desk she is going to say, “Brad what have you done?” and everyone will look, and then laughter will rock the building. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy’s lap. As he leaps to his feet Brad pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, “Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!”

Now, all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, Brad is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful, but as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his, has been transferred to someone else, Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. “You’ve done enough.” Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, Brad walks over to Susie and whispers, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Susie whispers back, “I wet my pants once too.”

Brad and Susie didn’t grow up to be girlfriend or boyfriend or anything, but for the rest of his life Brad remembered how Susie saved him from the ultimate humiliation. They never spoke of it again, but Brad never forgot. That was his snapshot of Susie.

As I reflected on this story and my own history, I realized that people stood out in my mind the same way. Usually, one or two things that made them a snapshot in my mind. Wally was an old sage, and I still plagiarise some of his words, Olivine was a saint, always faithful, industrious, and so it went on, this person was kind, that one reliable, John was generous, Jenny and Ray helped when I needed it most, Eric was encouraging and supportive (and good for laughs). Then there was Grace, we called her amazing grace because she was so unlike what her name suggested. Always intent on being right rather than loving or kind. I recall an old minister telling me as a young intern, that there would be a Grace everywhere you go and there was! There are many faces with illusive names, but still there are memories. The good, the bad and ….

So, what do they remember me for? If I have one snapshot in their memory album, what is it of? What will you be remembered for? Are you kind, compassionate, generous, or encouraging or are you prickly and legalistic or something else. How do you speak to people? What will people remember you for? What will God remember you for? Because the Bible says there is a book of remembrance! Am I then a man of faith? This is what is important to God. Will He remember me; am I in His book of remembrance?

My spiritual journey also has images in the mental picture book. The victories and the failures. As Leonard Cohen said in his ‘Hallelujah’ hymn, “Life is not a march down victory lane”. Maintaining spirituality in a crisis is the essence of faith, and Wally the sage become a sage because he pushed through life’s experiences of disappointments and failures and gained wisdom as a result (They say age is the price you pay for wisdom). Am I then a man of faith? This is what is important to God. Will He remember me; am I in His book of remembrance?

This is God’s picture gallery – the hall of faith. Mal 3: 16 says “those who feared the Lord talked with each other and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His name. “They will be mine” says the Lord Almighty “in the day when I make up my treasured possession, I will spare them…”

One day his second coming will be a memory, and then what? Through the ceaseless ages of eternity, we will “remember no more” the things that would give us pain. Bad experiences, missing loved ones, death, dying, sickness – all will be forgotten, and our tears wiped away. Planet earth, in its sinful stage, will seem just like an inconvenient night in an unpleasant hotel.