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Remembering

November is a time for remembering. We start the month with the annual competition to let off the biggest firework (with bonus points if you do it after midnight) in memory of Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators who attempted to blow up King James. Then comes a more solemn time when we wear our poppies and pause on the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month to remember the men and women who gave their lives in two World Wars and in many conflicts since. Later in the month on the evening of Sunday 19^th at All Saints Church we will take time to remember our loved ones have died when we gather to remember and to think and to cry.

You may have read the article in the Brodsworth Informer or the Highfields Village Chimes where I talked about my search for records of my Great Uncle Clifford. As a family all we had was a memorial plaque and the memory of my Grandma saying that he died in the war. Yet we knew that would have been barely 16 when the war ended. I tried for nearly 5 years to find records of Clifford, yet I couldn’t. Then I found an entry in the registers on-line which gave me hope. I sent for the death certificate and found that Private Reed, of the 3^rd East Yorkshire Regiment died in 1919, aged just 17. “I’ve found him”, was all I could say as I held the piece of paper.

Remembering, I discovered, is not something that just happens. It’s something we have to work at – whether remembering failed plots and treason, or loved ones, or brave young men and women. If we simply rely on them coming to mind then eventually the remembering will stop. We need to be deliberate about remembering.

The same is true of our faith – the Christian faith is about remembering – remembering that God created the world, that He loves each one of us so much that He came to save us – remembering His death and resurrection with the symbols of bread and wine – remembering that He is here now through his Holy Spirit. We need to be deliberate about telling the story of God, not just waiting for it to come up in conversation or in our homes, but actively remembering, reminding ourselves and others of the Good News – allowing God to make it real again in our hearts and minds.

November is a time for remembering. The hope we have comes from remembering God’s faithfulness in the past and then looking ahead to the future that he has promised.