Yesterday, while researching a particular address of interest, Google Maps indicated there was a cemetery hidden in the woods. It was close to a favored water crossing from my youth and near a battlefield that sealed the fate of a nation lost and one that began. Of the hundreds or thousands of times I had been by this location, I never remember seeing a single grave. The woods have grown. I’m not sure a headstone remains. It made me wonder.
Will We Remember
Once upon a time, I knew you…
Age moves me far away from then
Nascent memories of who you were, and now?
Time filters the past through the present lens.
I stood around a memorial stone.
Read the etched names and dates upon.
My mind scanned deeply through the years
And wondered who next will remember me?
Will there be someone such as I?
One who remembers the most recently gone
Or will it be a future find
When someone wonders, “Who is he?”
One of the billions that have come and gone
There’s no way we can remember each one
But there are special people from that crowd
We carry their name. I wonder why.
A name? We have a vague feeling of knowing.
But time and distance sweep us far from then.
Like diseases of memory, each grows faint.
But remember, please, at the very least, I existed.
Some trust in chariots wrote King David,
His times were no different than ours.
Others trust equally in horses. But we?
He sets my mind at ease…
We will remember the name of the Lord.
The Lord’s memory is fresh. Today. Moment by moment.
Not thousands of years gone by, or even yesterday.
Fresh every morning, His mercies are here!
Each day… Great is Thy Faithfulness.
Lord, as with unbelief so common,
Help me to remember. A life. Sacrifice. A promise.
Do not let the times wash your memory aside.
There is coming a day, some will say, I wished I had remembered.
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses;
But we will remember the name of the LORD our God.
(Psalms 20:7 NKJV)
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the LORD.
(Lamentations 3:24-26 NKJV)
