[OCCASION: 24th Annual Blyth Memory Garden Dedication Service - Sun. June 14, 2026]
MEMORY GARDEN: A PROMPT TO A PRECIOUS FACULTY
Memory is a precious human faculty – it sort of brings the past forward alongside the present, it makes life multidimensional in terms of time. This “memory garden” is an aid helping us to remember dear ones who have gone before us.
REMEMBERING A MEANS OF HONOURING
To remember someone is in a way a means of honouring them. If as a child our parents tell us not to play in the road, yet we go and join our friends in the street for a game of road hockey – that’s not honouring our parents! Remembering our elders is valuable for our own well-being.
The Ten Commandments are very ancient guidelines God gave His people to remember and live by when Israel was but a disorganized ragtag bunch of escaped slaves. Exodus 20(12) commands us, “Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” The Apostle Paul underscores this when urging children in the New Testament church in Ephesians 6(2f), “Honour your father and mother...that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”
The beautiful Memory Garden flowerbeds are a way of honouring our loved ones. Honouring our elders and those who have gone before us helps us be other-focused and not so selfish. Prov 10:7(a) says, “The memory of the righteous will be a blessing…” Psalm 112(6) adds, “For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever.”
As we walk amongst the flowerbeds, we are prompted to pause and reflect on the good qualities of those whose names are here; and to thank God for their lives and all they meant to us. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians (1:3), "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you."
REMEMBERING GOD GIVES PERSPECTIVE AS WE AGE
So we are nudged to remember not only the people who have gone before us, but also to remember God our Creator, without whom we wouldn’t even have life in the first place. The author of Ecclesiastes urges us to remember God when we’re young, before the aging process begins to take a toll on our health… Eccles.12(1-3,7) (Note the allusions to our stature, our teeth, and our eyesight!) “Remember the One who created you. Remember him while you are still young. Think about him before your times of trouble come… Remember your Creator before those who guard the house tremble with old age. That’s when strong men will be bent over. The women who grind grain will stop because there are so few of them left. Those who look through the windows won’t be able to see very well… Remember your Creator before you return to the dust you came from. That’s when your spirit will go back to God who gave it.”
The beauty of the flowers contrasts with the decay we see in our own frames. Scripture reminds us it’s all a gift from God, and this life – being subject to disease, wear-and-tear – isn’t forever, isn’t to be taken for granted.
REMEMBERING GOD GIVES ENCOURAGEMENT WHEN WE FEEL FORGOTTEN
Life isn’t always sunshine and roses! Life can be tough. The people remembered here had their own struggles. Sometimes we admire their character because it was forged through incredible hardships. Those tough times can make us question if maybe we’ve been forgotten by God. Even Biblical writers cried out to God, asking Him to remember them in their hard circumstances.
One of the hardest times was when Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem for years before it fell in 586 BC. Around that time the prophet Jeremiah described horrible conditions of starvation and death. Yet he could also write in Lamendations 3(21-23), "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end." He said, “I call to mind” – that’s active remembering, being very intentional, looking beyond present pain and hardship to recall God’s goodness in the past.
Similarly the author of Psalm 77 asked, “Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?’” (but then changed gears and said) “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.” Remembering changed his focus positively.
When times are tough now in the present, memory helps us be encouraged as it brings forward past times when we experienced God’s overall goodness and faithfulness.
REMEMBERING GOD’S GRACE: HE FORGETS OUR GAFFS
The persons honoured here in the Memory Garden were dear and precious, but not perfect – and neither are we. We all have committed sins and mistakes, whether actively by commission or neglectfully by omission. The Bible-writers implored God to be deliberately “forgetful” about (to not remember) these flaws. Psalm 25(4-8), “Lord, remember your great mercy and love… Don’t remember the sins I committed when I was young. Don’t remember how often I refused to obey you. Remember me because you love me.”
We will treat others better – and build positive memories and associations for them – when we remember God and put His ways into practice.
REMEMBERING JESUS DIED FOR US AND IS COMING BACK FOR US
Finally, remembering is important with regard to Jesus because He wants us to know He died so our sins could be “forgotten” and so, by His rising to life again, we could look forward to everlasting life when we trust in Him. To help us remember this, He gave us another prompt: not a garden but a meal. The bread and wine of communion serve as pointers to His grace and promise of being reunited with all who love Him – including those who died before us. At the Last Supper (Luke 22:14-19): “He took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’ And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
In this key act of faith we are not just looking back (remembering) but also looking forward!
LIVING IN THE MEMORIES OF GOD
John Swinton is a Scottish theologian and former mental health nurse who has written about health, spirituality, and disability. He counters the modern belief that the cerebral cortex is the seat of personhood, which might lead some to view those with intellectual disabilities as lesser humans. One prize-winning book is titled “Dementia: Living in the Memories of God”. One thing I took from it was the realization that, as a person becomes less cognitively able to function on their own, those in their circle of care take on more of the “memory” function for them – such as when to take their meds, what day it is, when their appointments are, maybe who a certain person is. I experienced this to some degree as my own wife coped many years with a brain tumour. We caregivers start to function to some degree as their “memory” for them.
I’m not saying this applies perfectly to our Memory Garden situation. We’re not somehow magically keeping alive the people named here. Yet they are “alive to God” as Jesus was perhaps alluding in a controversy with the religious leaders of His day in Matthew 22(31f) – He challenged them: “But about the resurrection of the dead — have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.’”
As we treasure the memory of them, we bring them actively before their Creator and ours, their Redeemer and ours – Who holds us precious in His memory, and by Christ’s grace forgets our flaws.
