A song from a sweet little musical, “The Fantasticks,”tells the story of a girl and boy who fall in love, but they are neighbors and their fathers have been involved in a feud for some time.  A wall separates their homes.  The fathers have secretly been pretending to feud in order to manipulate their children into falling in love – using reverse psychology, I guess.  The song I most loved from this unspectacular musical is called “Try to Remember.”  One of the verses is as follows:

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Our memories are often filled with thoughts of the “good old days” when times were perfect in our minds.  As we grow older, those thoughts take on new meaning as we believe that we can never recapture them.  Our days grow shorter, the time allotted us is coming quickly to an end and we find ourselves trying desperately to hang onto those memories.

We like to believe that the times we spent growing up were the best of all times – that somehow those days have been corrupted over time and will nevermore return.  The older we get, the more we dwell on our past memories.  Yet all was not perfect when I was a child.

When I was growing up in the 40s and 50s, we had no clue about global warming or the internet.  Our lives were simpler then.  Kids played in the street – we didn’t lock our doors – we ate dirt – we recycled before it was popular,  BUT it also was a time right after a world war and during the Korean War.  The atomic bomb was a real threat.  Air raid drills were held in our schools.  Many were building bomb shelters in their backyards.

The economy was still in a state of recovery.  We wore second hand clothes and shoes.  Our food was homemade and consisted of starchy things like pasta to fill us up. We never knew about the ill effects of gluten. We never thought of paying $150 bucks for a pair of old, torn blue jeans and we were lucky if we got a pair of new shoes when school started –  but. I digress.

George Washington undoubtedly preferred remembering the days when he was cutting down cherry trees more than his time leading a fledgling country out of a revolution and building what is now America.  On the other hand, he would probably be rolling over in his grave (if that’s possible) if he knew what’s happened to the country since it’s beginning.

What I’m trying to say is this – Looking back is a good thing.  We can learn from past mistakes and grow from them  but looking forward is even better.  The world has been promised a perfect life in eternity after death.  How great is that?  We will some day be in the paradise that God originally planned for us.  He’s washed away all the bad things from our past.  He’s forgiven every sin. We’ll have all our teeth – healthy bodies – no sorrows or tears – our joy will be overflowing.  The best is yet to be and all we have to do is FOLLOW the One who makes it possible.