Forgetting 101

I can't remember the first prayer I ever sent to Heaven's doorstep petitioning healing for my body. It must have been over six years ago. Back in those days my floundering health was a big mystery and all I wanted was God to make it go away. I wasn't asking for explanation for the cause or the catalyst. All I wanted was the ordeal erased for good. So I asked God to heal me.
Six years later and that prayer hasn't been answered. My condition has worsened. Instead of getting well, I've gotten more ill. Instead of symptom elimination, I've experienced symptom multiplication. This certainly isn't what I was looking for when I turned to God in prayer. I wanted a quick fix and a speedy resolution. He's had a much different agenda in mind.
Throughout my years of prayer and health ups and downs I've run into countless walls. Somewhere along this journey I stopped keeping track of the failed therapies, treatment options, drugs and doctors. For the sake of resiliency I've had to learn to release the regret of failed remedies. To keep going I've chosen to forget the heartache of the let down. In order to formulate my souls prayer for healing I've had to learn to let go of every past dashed hope and dead dream.

Forgetting gets a bad rap. Most people, doctors and magazine articles tout the benefits of a good memory. To boost the brain's capacity to remember there are supplement, puzzles and entire websites devoted to "brain games." To protect the brain's memory get ample sleep, eat leafy greens and don't you dare smoke. The goal is to remember everything, forever.
Well, I'm here to tell you that memory isn't all it's cracked up to be. In fact, forgetting can be quite freeing. Take for example, forgetting every time you trip and fall. Wouldn't you like to forget how your knees hurt and the embarrassment of ending up face down on the pavement? Wouldn't it be nice to forget the day of your big breakup with the ex you thought you were going to marry? I wouldn't mind forgetting a number of unpleasant nightmares and the one D I received on my high school report card.
Forgetting has its benefits, no supplement required. Forgetting can be an ability and a blessing. The last six years of my life are proof. For six years I have learned how to forget and the skill has done more to protect my heart more than Ginko Giloba ever could.
My exercises in forgetting began with a prayer sent to Heaven's doorstep as a petition for healing. Back in those days my floundering health was a big mystery and all I wanted was God to make it go away. I wasn't asking for an explanation, just a big eraser to make it all go away for good. So I asked God to heal me.
Six years later and that prayer hasn't been answered. My condition has worsened. Instead of getting well, I've become more ill. Instead of symptom elimination, I've experienced symptom multiplication. This certainly isn't what I was looking for when I turned to God in prayer. I wanted a quick fix and a speedy resolution. Despite the length of the ordeal and the unanswered prayers I've never stopped coming to Jesus with my plea and that's thanks, in part, to my terrible memory.
You see, throughout my years of prayer and health ups and downs I've run into countless walls. Somewhere along this journey I stopped keeping track of the failed therapies, treatment options, drugs and doctors. For the sake of resiliency I've had to learn to release the regret of failed remedies.  I've had to learn how to forget. To keep going I've chosen to release the heartache of let down. In order to formulate my soul's prayer for healing I've learned to let go of dashed hopes and dead dreams.
God has, for six long, tedious and trying years, been conducting a class He designed and perfected and it's called, "Forgetting 101." The mission is to forget what is behind so that I can strain towards what is ahead. When I graduate I should be a professional at short-term memory loss and skilled at lacking long-term remembrances. God has been training me in releasing the chains that once bound me by forgetting their strength. By relieving me of my past God is diminishing its power.
Let's be honest, we all want a pill or a supplement to make all of our aches go away and our bodies to perform at their optimal levels. We want memory to come in a bottle and cures for diseases to be found in the medicine cabinet but God works in an entirely different way. He takes the long road to the higher places. He puts us in the classrooms of His choosing, not the world's, closes the door and keeps hold of the key. He teaches us lessons in principles we didn't sign up for.
I didn't know I needed to learn how to forget. I, like the rest of the world, thought I was supposed to remember. But God has plenty He wants me to forget so that I can move forward. The past can turn into shackles that bind. Forgetting can break those chains.
To forget God's way is to strain towards the hope of tomorrow and find freedom from the regrets of yesterday. Forgetting the past is the catalyst to a new, bright, bountiful future full of hope and healing.  I don't want to remember yesterday and I need not remember every detail of the past six years because God is writing me a tomorrow. I'm learning to strain with great anticipation for God's good and faithful promises of the future. Today I am forgetting the past, my chains and the shackles that bound me so that I can run towards the bright and shining glory God had just ahead.