Sorry, What Was Your Name Again?

Story by Amy Stopher, photography by Kym van der Plas

I have a terrible memory. Or at least, that’s my excuse. Don’t ask me the plot of the book I’ve just read, or what I did on the weekend. Each season I plant seeds in my garden, confident I’ll remember what’s planted in each bed. It feels so simple, how could I forget? Too lazy to make notes, I find myself perplexed when plants emerge. I don’t know if that’s broccoli or cauliflower. I’ll tell you when it reveals itself.

Recently, while meeting the other guests at a friend’s birthday dinner, a woman said to me, “I know you. You were my teacher.” I hadn’t recognised her. When she told me her name there was a whisper of a memory. Just a whisper. Yes, it was 15 years ago, but it’s surprising and a bit troubling to me that I don’t remember her.

I’ve taken to relying on all kinds of hacks to remember things. Lists, phone reminders, task managers, password managers, handwritten notes. It’s a chaotic, inconsistent collection of systems, desperately trying to compensate for what my memory lacks.

But my claim to a terrible memory is a bit simplistic. Recently a colleague picked up a new car, a Kia Carnival, for his expanding brood. I remember the day my Dad came home with a Toyota Tarago. There was a baby on the way, and four children didn’t fit in a station wagon. We sat out on the front lawn waiting for him, waving as he drove down the street and into our driveway. I remember going to the hospital with my Gran to meet my new sister a few months later. I remember walking down the hall of the hospital. I was just two and a half when my sister Lucy was born, yet I remember.

As a student I had a good memory, or at least strategies for remembering. I started Year 8 when my oldest sister was in Year 12. When exam time came, I copied her, writing up a study timetable and diligently sticking to it. I studied for Year 8 exams like a Year 12 ATAR student. That first year established a pattern and I nerded out all through high school. I’m not sure I actually synthesised the things I learned, but I nailed getting them into my brain to retrieve under exam conditions.

These days, I mostly have a better memory for people than for things. I’m much more likely to remember information about a person - their name, family and history - than facts about a topic. I often find myself reflecting, “I had an opinion about that once,” where only scratchy details remain.

Sometimes I wonder whether my brain is just full. It’s reached the limit of how many names it can remember. It’s started clearing space to make room. My phone doesn’t help. When all the information you could ever need is in your pocket, why bother remembering anything?

But Christians are called to be people who remember. The call echoes through Scripture, “Remember the Lord!” As the people of Israel gathered at the cusp of the promised land waiting to go in, Moses reminded them not to forget their God, the one true God, the LORD. They were to talk about his word constantly, passing it on to their children, and remembering how God had rescued them out of Egypt (check out Deuteronomy). That call comes again, and again, and again, through the whole Bible. Remember the Lord. Remember his salvation. Paul says in his second letter to Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…” (2 Tim. 2:8).

We’re called to remember because we forget! But our minds aren’t really the problem. It’s our hearts. Our hearts are prone to wander. Prone to question God’s goodness to us. Prone to seek our satisfaction elsewhere.

One of my favourite Psalms is Psalm 77. The Psalmist is distressed. He cries out to God, asking, “Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” He answers his own question, saying “I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.” Where is the Psalmist’s comfort? In remembering God’s salvation. The God who called his people out of Egypt will surely be merciful now. The God who saved them then will save him now. The Psalmist remembers, and his heart turns to the Lord.

One of the best gifts I was given as a young adult was the encouragement to memorise Scripture. Whole chunks of the Bible are locked away in my brain, learned when I was young. I know the Bible far better now than I did 20 years ago, but I’ve fallen out of the habit of deliberately learning it, to my loss. I would do well to deliberately learn God’s word, to have it turning over in my mind as I go about each day, and in that very concrete way to remember the Lord, in my mind, and my heart.

I’ve been thinking more and more about what happens when our memories fail us. Right now, even with my terrible memory, I can remember the Lord. Any risk of forgetting him lies with my heart, not my memory. But one day, that might change. One day it might be my memory that fails me. I might literally forget the God I know, and love, who saved me. What then?

If that day comes, I’ll rely on the God who remembered me first. The book of Exodus is the account of God’s rescue of his people from slavery in Egypt. The book opens by setting the scene: oppression and death reign. But the story takes an early turn. The people cry out to God for help and we’re told, “God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham.” God remembered them. He remembered the promises he’d made to them. He remembered them before he saved them, and before he called them to remember him. He remembered first.

So, I don’t need to fear the day of memory failure, for me or those I love. Instead I can trust in the God who remembers, perfectly.

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Amy Stopher—Regular Contributor

Amy grew up by the beach, the third of four sisters, and first learned the gospel from her parents. She taught high school students Politics and English, before studying Theology at Trinity Theological College in Perth, WA. Now Amy serves on the ministry team at Providence City, and delights in seeing women grow in their confidence to teach God’s word. Amy loves gardening, cooking for people and eating with them, and early mornings at the beach. She lives with her dog, Billie. She processes her thoughts on ministry, food, and gardening on Substack.