The God Who Never Forgets

A horse figurine that was my grandfather's when he was a little boy

Sugar and creamer from my grandparents' everyday dishes

“Happily, God knows where to find the soul.”  – Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

One of our favorite stops on Sunday afternoon car rides is old graveyards.  Big ones, little ones, country ones down the road, or tiny ones tucked into valleys up in the mountains – it makes no difference.  I find them fascinating and have M. “trained” to automatically pull into interesting-looking ones.  Why?  I’m not sure. I do love history and old things and the beautiful engravings and quaint poetry on stones from the 1800’s and before.

But there’s more to it than that.  Quietly rambling through graveyards does something similar to me that funerals do.  They make eternity seem closer.  For a little while, the veil between heaven and earth appears just a little bit thinner.  I am reminded that one day my body, too, will lay in the earth, waiting for the trumpet call.

I find it a little sad when we discover the oldest part of the cemetery – where the oldest stones stand.  Oftentimes, the tombstones are fallen over, broken off, or so weathered by time and the elements that no trace of who lies there remains.  But I take hope in the fact that God knows.  That He knows where to find the soul.

All this ties in to something else I’ve been thinking.  Now that my grandfather’s gone and his home has been cleaned out, my sister and I have inherited several things that once belonged to our grandparents.  We’ve also re-accumulated old toys and things that were our’s when we were children – stuff that’s been tucked away in an attic with an accumulation of three generations of our family over 60 years time.  She and I met at her home one evening to go through it together, making it a bit of a celebration with roses and banana/Nutella crepes in the deal.  A time of closure of that part of our lives.

As we rejoiced and reminisced over our family things, I was struck that these things mean something only to her and me.  In just another generation or two, these mementoes and memories will have little to no value to anyone else.  Beyond that, in just a few more generations, even we ourselves will mean little to those beyond us.  But God knows. 

It brings me comfort and hope to remember that God knows, that He loves us, that He never forgets just who we are and where we are, that we mean everything to Him – not just now, but forever.  I’m thankful for these days, for these memories, for these family mementoes.  But most of all, I’m thankful for the things of eternity and for God Himself – Who never, ever forgets. 

My grandmother's wooden clothespins

A decoy from my grandfather's early days of duck hunting