Anamnesis

Back in November, Kory attended a missionary personnel conference. While there, he learned a LOT about missionary care and also met quite a few new people, most of them with a decade or more of experience working with missionaries. One of the clinics he went to, was on “Strengthening the Soul of the Missionary Family.” The leader of the clinic, Diane Morris, co-wrote a booklet on the topic of “anamnesis” (which was just one of the many subjects discussed during the clinic). Unfortunately, they ran out but she promised to send one to him at the LBT office. When Kory came home with it at the beginning of December, I read through the short booklet in a sitting and immediately felt led to put into practice some of the ideas. It was something God had been nudging us toward for a little while, but we weren’t exactly sure where to start. The book had some simple yet wonderful ideas.

So what in the world is anamnesis? It’s Greek for “remembrance” and put quite simply, it’s the practice of remembering what God has been doing in your life. There are dozens of ideas brought forth in the booklet, but we’ve decided to start small with just a couple of them. One thing we’ve started doing is asking one another at dinner time “How did you see God at work today?” This is a great opener for some very uplifting conversation. It directs our attention upward and encourages us when we’ve had a rough day. We’ve only done this a few times so far, but we are now starting to look for Him throughout the day. This is something that I have done off and on at various times in my life, but to make a point of it, a regular practice, is something new.

On New Year’s day, we started what will hopefully be a new tradition. We made our own puzzle with key moments we REALLY saw God at work in 2011. On the other side of the puzzle, we wrote down prayer requests for 2012. It was a really good way to focus ourselves on Him, what He has done, and what He is going to do.

Another thing that we have JUST started (so I’ll let you know how it goes) is that we’ve placed a piece of poster board in our living room with some pens and post-it notes. Whenever we have a “God-sighting” as I’ll call it, we can write it down and put it on the board. When it’s filled up, we’ll take a picture of it and then start anew. Obviously, the kids are too little to help much with this, but our hope and prayer is that by hearing our excitement about what God is doing in our lives (and in the lives of those we know), they’ll begin to see Him at work and share in our excitement. We want our children to know that God is not just someone we read about, talk about, or talk to (without ever getting a response), but He is at work. He’s not just silent or watching us or judging us to see how we measure up. He cares about all the details of our lives. He answers prayer. We can see this as we read scripture but we can also see it, if we are attentive to it, right here and now.

Eventually, my hope is to do an “anamnesis scrapbook” where we would put mementos of events or pictures of our poster boards and whatever else triggers a memory of God’s work in our lives. That way, when seasons of difficulty and doubt come along, there is a book there waiting to be opened so that we can remember! We are so blessed to have another book, His Word, telling of God’s work in the world through Jesus Christ. Through the lens of His Word and the work of the Holy Spirit, we can see Him at work today in the world around us and in our hearts.

PS- The booklet is NOT copy-writed so if anybody would like a copy, let me know! I could pretty easily scan it and send it (it’s less than 15 pages total).