Irrecoverable Memories

It was an irrecoverable moment!” Billy Graham was looking back on his last meeting with President Kennedy.

The President had asked Graham to ride back to the White House with him after the 1963 National Prayer Breakfast. He said he wanted to see Billy for a minute. There were compelling reasons why Billy asked the President to please excuse him and… could they talk later? It was a snowy day and Billy stood there outside the hotel, feverish and sick, in the freezing cold without an overcoat. The President of the United States graciously said, “Of course.”

But writing about the incident years later, Billy Graham said he was still haunted by the president’s look standing there at the car door, hesitating. “It was an irrecoverable moment!” That was the last time Billy saw the President alive. (Just As I Am p. 399).

Reading Billy Graham’s account I wanted to protest, “ Dr. Graham, don’t be hard on yourself. You couldn’t have known. Think of all the times you risked your life and health for the sake of your calling before God-- all the victories you have won-- the thousands of people you have helped, the Kingdom work you have done. Also remember your meaningful conversations with the President. Remember him laughing as he offered to be “your John the Baptist” in Columbia (p. 398).

Anyone reading Billy Graham’s autobiography would agree that Billy was God’s man for the second half of the 20th century. Yet he was “haunted” by an irrecoverable moment where he believed he may have made a wrong choice.

Probably everyone has memories of irrecoverable moments as a husband, wife, parent, friend, colleague or even in a quick encounter with a stranger. The older we grow the more of these moments we are likely to recall. And if we have parented or worked with people in our vocations, the moments are too numerous to count.

Strange how irrecoverable moments come back to haunt us at odd times, often when our minds are not focused on the task at hand or when we are weak or troubled. Most of us probably have memories of times when we failed another person or chose unwisely, took the easiest way; situations where we acted out of fear or selfishness or perhaps even exhaustion or sickness; times where we did not hear a friend’s unspoken call for help, didn’t write that letter, didn’t visit that friend in the hospital, didn’t say that gracious word that could have made a positive difference for another human being.

As a high school teacher, I had to make many split-second decisions. Some were wise and good. Sometimes I felt the Holy Spirit leading, guiding, upholding me. Other times I would act out of weariness or without having all the facts. Many of those moments were of limited significance and have fallen away with the years. But some still bother me occasionally: Could I have foreseen the calamity, made more effort to listen to a student or colleague. Why did I naively trust the student who conned me rather than confront him before he made life altering mistakes.

I still remember a student who came back to school to apologize to me for his behavior several years earlier. He was just coming out of rehab after several years of destructive behavior and torment. He knew I deserved an apology for his behavior in my class. He said he had no idea what he may have said or done in my class because he was “stoned” for most of his senior year. Lacking experience with drug addicts at that time, I thought he just had a bad case of adolescence. Could I have been part of a solution earlier, had I been more aware?

As parents we often do not know which things we did right and which were probably wrong. Sometimes our adult children may tell us. Sometimes they quietly and kindly forgive us. Most of us would like to have the chance to do some of our parenting over again with the wisdom of a 60 year old and the energy of a 20 year old in rearing the treasures that God gave us to parent.

King David gave a public voice to his haunting memories as he poured out his heart to God in the Psalms. “I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin…. (Psa.38: 18); “Deliver me from bloodguiltinss, O God” (Psa. 51:14). I wonder if David, remembering how he arranged for a trusting soldier’s death, was haunted by Uriah’s visage. David didn’t merely choose unwisely. He sinned boldly. But he humbly effusively pleaded for God’s forgiveness.

In his youthful religious zeal, Apostle Paul persecuted Christians. As he put the past behind him and “pressed toward the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus,” I wonder if he was ever troubled by memories of those who suffered because of him. Did their pained faces ever mock him? Romans 7 and 8 outline some of his struggle and his victory. He learned to walk in the Spirit.

What do we do with haunting memories of those irrecoverable moments?

I am learning to pause as the memory flows over me, and ask the Lord to: forgive me where I was wrong; teach me anything I ought to learn; make up for my lack in the other person’s life if that is possible; and help me to let the memory go . . . to forgive myself.

I also think we must remember that we are not the center of the universe nor is God limited to our help alone in shepherding his sheep and establishing his kingdom. God has other instruments of love in the other person’s life and in his eternal plan.

And so today we must live with eyes and ears wide open, alert to the voice of our Lord, valuing irrecoverable moments.

And occasionally we even need to laugh at ourselves . . . at least once in awhile.