Remember: Memorizing Him

Wednesday, November 11, 2009


I became ill during my second year of college. The Lyme disease cloaked itself as MS, attacking my nervous system, installing lesions in my brain and spine, offering brain fog for memory, collapse for walk-strength.

My grades fell along with me. All I could remember were the things that stirred my heart.

I don't remember what I learned in school that year, but I remember God. I remember how He brought His Word alive to me in the morning hour I spent with my required Bible-reading. I remember encountering His love in Romans, having my concept of freedom blown open in Galatians, finding Christ in Leviticus as the eastern sun shone into my conference room refuge. I read through the book of Mark that summer and wept at its conclusion. That January, I spent five days in the Old Testament, reading it as I would read a novel, amazed at the God who spread Himself across the pages, across the stories, across the years.

Once I had known how to memorize, now God was teaching me to remember. I traded exact wording for heart-phrases I didn't remember learning. My limping heart began to respond to His Spirit, retuning its nerves with my physical nerves, leaving first wheelchair, then cane behind as I learned to walk all over again, using different signals that bypassed the lesions, leaning hard on what I knew of Him.

I still couldn't tell you what someone said to me five minutes ago. I couldn't tell you what I said thirty seconds ago. I can't repeat or quote long passages of anything, reiterate anything I learned for a test.

But I can tell His grace for memory. I can share what I know of His heart, the memories we have created together as He teaches me about walking with Him. My reproduce-words-habit has become memory-habit as He draws me beyond the page into relationship.

The words, like silhouettes against the sunrise, merely frame this incomprehensible Eternal. It is the Word Himself who is printing His image on my heart, and while I too often forget exact words and phrases I wish to remember, He has taught me through the fog to remember His heart.

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

14 comments:

Cassandra Frear said...

Stunning post. Jesus shines through. And so does your voice.

With your permission, I'd like to post a link to it on Moonboat Cafe.

aimee said...

Thank you so much for sharing His heart and yours. I too have Lyme disease... although have not suffered with it to the extent you have. Many blessings to you today- may we all remember through the fog of this world - the heart of our Lord.

Maureen said...

Kelly,

Our now-former daughter-in-law has Lyme disease. It went undiagnosed for 10 years, working itself into her deepest core. I helped care for her for a year that she lived, apart from her husband, in our home. I saw up close and personal how this disease takes. It took her marriage. It almost took mine. I wish she could have the faith you express so compellingly here. Without my own faith, ravaged as it is, I could have lost much more.

The story of your experience of Lyme is important, to those who have the disease, and to those who do not. I saw a quite extraordinary documentary about it that continues to leave me stunned and aching.

Kelly Sauer said...

Cassandra - permission granted.

Aimee - thanks for your comment. It is encouraging to me that you see His heart here. P.S. I love the spelling on your name!

Maureen - it is wonderful to find someone who understands what we live from day to day, the ups and downs. Going from treatment to pregnancy was not easy; keeping my head above water is something else. Thanks for your comment.

Corinne Cunningham said...

There is so much inspiration in your beautiful words. Thank you for sharing :)

Joyeful said...

"to remember His heart"....what inspiring words....oh that I would be continually aware of His heart!

L.L. Barkat said...

Ah, the pain of this... Kelly. I am wordless.

A and C from GA said...

Wow!! I am once again in AWE of the goodness of God! Thank you so much for sharing this!!

Abigail Jasmine said...

Beautifully written..Thank you for sharing..:)
You are so inspiring & heart-felt..:)
The last little part, I adore. I need His word everyday..to overcome, to love, to have joy...If all of us Christian in the world read daily & more, how much more would God be gloried through us & how much more joy & peace we would have! :):)

Lovely photo as well..

~LoVe n' LiGHT

Traci Michele said...

Beautiful, stunning.... is His Grace, His Peace, His Word, coming into our mind, and heart!

Hugs,
Traci

everything else thrown in said...

Oh Kelly, this is so compelling, stunning, beautifully written,--just a classic, classic post--I went through a valley many years ago with a ruptured disc--was down for a year with 3 little boys--God ministered to me during that time almost exactly as you wrote about but I have never had words to express it. I too would like to post a link to this column. Just straight from the heart of God. Thank you, thank you, thank you--Dianne

Maria said...

Hi! I'm so glad I wandered here from Everything Else Thrown In...

You have a beautiful awareness of the Creator in your life... within you...
May you find strength and healing ~~~
Maria

Bianca said...

What a beautiful post, Kelly. The rawness of it was so touching!

By the way, I LOVED the poem you posted on my blog. I was so touched...

Ann Voskamp @Holy Experience said...

Oh Kelly....

'The words, like silhouettes against the sunrise, merely frame this incomprehensible Eternal'


Your words steal the breath from the lungs... They outline His heart.

So grateful for you....

All's grace,
Ann

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