Oh look! Goldfish!

 Last week I wrote about an Angolan refugee boy named Jose.  As soon as I posted the blog, Tony and I began berating ourselves.

"Why had we lost contact with Jose?"  I'm sure he was literate, had access to mail and all the other ways of communicating. What a blessing he was to us! And yet, why did we 'forget' about him?

I think you can see where this is going.  

Over time, how many people have you simply 'lost track of'?

Why is that?

The Japanese have a saying about people who don't lose touch, “Only the moles don't know who she is".

At our age, it’s impossible to count the people who have crossed out path. Yeah, there are a few who are best forgotten, but those other thousands have slipped into the fog of time, completely beyond reach, barring some recollection miracle. 

Trying to justify ourselves, Tony and I point to a whole litany of evil that seems bent on removing those potentially life-changing people from our consciousness. The one held up more often than not is the “tyranny of the urgent”, but I’m afraid in moments of clarity I have to admit that it’s just plain laziness. 

Rick Warren said once, “We do not live lives of desperation but of distraction". I remember a “Far Side” cartoon that showed a bunch of Vikings storming a castle. As they race over the moat toward the open gate, one Viking stops, looks over the edge of the bridge and cries out, “Oh look! Goldfish!” That’s become a byword for us these days.

When we left Africa, I was pregnant, a seminary-bound hopeless romantic cancer survivor. My life was filled with a thousand hopes and dreams along with seemingly insurmountable responsibilities and challenges to figure out. And someone like a young Angolan refugee boy just couldn’t find his way into my active memory. I regret that now, and I always will. 

As if to add more shame to my regrets, I was MADE to recall not long ago two boys, also from Zambia, who did not forget us. More than twenty years after leaving Africa, they wrote our mission board in America (how they found THAT address is a tribute to their intelligence and ambition) just to tell us that they had become Christians because of memories they held of us when they were only 8 yrs old!  

That's remarkable ..... to think that these two boys-become-young-men cared enough and weren’t distracted to do what needed to be done to make our lives richer. 

Is this enough to re-ignite an old memory? If so, here’s your chance to start a fire. Take a few minutes today and FIND or WRITE or Call someone whom you may have neglected.  What’s the worst that could happen? Who knows what delightful responses you may get?  While we're still on this earth, let's try and rekindle a connection.

If no one comes to mind, I might suggest that you make it a matter of prayer. Keep in mind the Lord’s promise from Isaiah 44:21, 

“I, the Lord, made you, and I will not forget you. Always remember, you are not forgotten. Not by God. Be encouraged.”

Trying it out myself, I suddenly remembered an old boyfriend. Well, at least I had a crush on him.  Truth be known, I have no idea if he even knew who I was. In my enthusiasm, I Googled his name, and three clicks later, there he was, on Facebook, 60 years older and seemingly none the worse for not having known me all these years! hahaha. I think I’ll keep on letting him continue not knowing about me. 

So how about it? Does anyone come to mind? Then there’s always …

Oh look! Goldfish!