Memorize It, They Said

 Do you remember that scene from Charlie Brown Christmas where Linus stands up and quotes scripture from Luke 2? It is a sweet memory that is probably engraved in your mind as it is in mine. As a Baptist preacher’s kid I have been required to memorize scripture more times than I can recall. One of my first attempts was for a Christmas play. I was required to memorize half of a verse and say it at the right time. The half verse was this: “for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.” Of course this was King James Version because, back then we didn’t have choices. I balked, declaring that it was poor English and made no sense. I begged my parents to let me change it to make sense. That did not fly. So I said it. And I am sure it was with zero enthusiasm and a lot of prompting and my attempts to memorize after that day never got easier.

I have been required to memorize multiple verses, poems, and even a short story. But here is the rub. I never could successfully quote a single sentence unless I was saying it with a group or it was set to music like the ABC song. I always had to improvise. I could never lead the Lord’s Prayer or even quote John 3:16 without a flub up. Ever. Even with hundreds of repetitions, never could I quote anything from movie lines to the Gettysburg address flawlessly. And it is not that I haven’t tried. More recently I have downloaded an app to help me memorize. I spent time once a day for a couple of years attempting to memorize verses. Even after all those attempts, it never stuck. I often questioned God on why my brain couldn’t memorize. He gave me no direct answer.

I often tell this story of my mom. My mother suffered with dementia in her later years so I would attend church services with her in her nursing home. One Sunday, a pastor in the middle of his sermon quoted John 10:10 leaving the end unfinished for his sleepy, geriatric audience to complete. He said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more–.” He stopped and waited. I was thinking, “dude, know your audience,” when much to my surprise, mom lifted her head and boldly filled in “abundantly.” I sat there amazed with tears in my eyes.

Sometimes bits and pieces of those failed memorized passages will come to my mind out of the blue much like mom’s did. Being curious about where in the Bible the random phrase originated or if I made it up, I will type the words into the Google search bar and the scripture address pops right up. And it was always what I need to hear when I need to hear it. My recall and my mom’s recall(and the Google search engine) amaze me. I’m sure all of it can be explained away scientifically but this could never explain how the brain came to be engineered this way. I know Who created my brain. I know Who set the stars in the heavens. And I know Who brings those phrases to mind at just the right time.