memories

This past Friday the Executive Board of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church said good-bye to me and Valerie McCann-Woodson because we are “terming out”. Our chair, Will Davidson, asked the other board members to share their thoughts and reflections about our terms of service on the board. It was a wonderful time of hearing how others saw us and the impact we’d had on the conference and on the members of the board.

I got a chance to see myself as others saw me. People told me about things that I didn’t even know I’d done. They had memories of me that I wasn’t at all aware of. But because they told me, these things have now become a part of me, shaping who I am.

The church is a community of memory. As individuals we forget things. But as a community we can remember things for each other that we may have forgotten or didn’t even know, especially things like how much God loves us and the fact that he takes delight in each of us, his children (Zephaniah 3:17). This is something we often forget, or at least we live like we’ve forgotten it. But we can remember it for each other and help each other live in the joy of being God’s beloved.