BOOK OF LIFE
I have discovered a blessing in my old age, one that is difficult to describe, yet deeply life-giving. I speak now as if to someone thirty years old, only to show the difference in perspective that eighty-nine years of living can produce. Memory, I have found, moves in two ways: short-time and long-time. Both recall the same events, yet each presents them differently. One can feel like it was yesterday; and in another instance, another lifetime entirely.
The blessing is this: in old age, when both sets of memories remain intact and joined in their clarity, memory becomes dimensional. Short-term memory carries the vivid details, while long-term memory carries the context, the meaning, and the lesson. Together, they form what I call my Book of Life, a living record of who I have been, rich with experience, free from distortion, and even free from the sting of guilt, shame, and fear.
Memory becomes more than recollection. It becomes a record of indelible truth. It is an accounting from which the measure of one’s life may be known, a sure foundation for judgment and poetic justice in the next world. It displays no redaction, for it is my life, raw and whole.
Many years ago, I had what I can only call a vision. I was alone in darkness when, I felt, I became aware of being in the sight of innumerable Heavenly Hosts, whoever they may be. Every act, every word, every thought appeared before me like a vast collage of events. As the Bible says of those struck with visions, I quaked. My life stood exposed as a display before those witnessing presences. Guilt, shame, and fear struck together as I realized there was nowhere to hide, no way to lie to myself, no escape from facing this glaring exposure to truth.
Through that experience, I understood the depth of the grace I had received. I felt a renewed thankfulness for the offering of Jesus, a way out from beneath Love’s disapproval. I could not undo the past, but I could accept the forgiveness offered to me. And with a shaking heart, I did. Like confession itself, I left determined to sin no more.
Freed from guilt, shame, and fear, my future with Christ became clear: choose to remain free from the mental chains that had once burdened me. Change came because I accepted forgiveness. Acceptance produced transformation. And the result is this: I am able to love myself and others because God is love, and I am part of His consciousness.
My definition of sin is simple: if I harm or violate another by word or deed, it is sin. Period.
My life guide is Scripture: “Try all things and hold fast to that which is good.” Living by this principle makes my path clear. No rituals or cleansing ceremonies, no allowing others to define my sins for me, no endless begging forgiveness for imagined wrongs against myself. Such freedom allows life to unfold like a clean slate.
The sheer exhilaration of life itself becomes its own reward. Thankfulness and gratitude fill every day, not as obligation, but as the nourishing essence of life itself.
Here, in this recognition of dual memory, exposure, forgiveness, and moral clarity, I stand fully alive. My life is a Book where the past is clear, the present is vivid, and the future holds neither fear nor regret, but love, unbroken, enduring, and whole.
A life of subservience to God and others carries no burden