The Healing of Memories

How the Holy Spirit invites us to remember rightly

Time—unlike what we are often told—doesn’t always heal. Sometimes, we must go back to the pain in order to experience the healing we so long for. Not returning to abuse or oppression. But returning to giving the pain time and space to be attended to. In many mental health professions, increased attention has been given to the restorative power of self-knowledge for those who’ve experienced various levels of trauma. Trauma, psychologists and mental health counselors report, is not always mended without the difficult work of integrating the very sources of pain into the life of the one traumatized. In his visceral and overwhelming account What It Is Like to Go to War, veteran Karl Marlantes illustrates how remembering and self-knowledge has the potential to bring healing to the trauma, pain, and violence of the battlefield:

The road to recovery requires learning to tell the truth, even if that truth is brutally painful. I’d never been able to tell anyone what was going on inside. So, I forced these images back, away, for years. I began [however] to reintegrate that split-off part of my experience...Then, out came this overwhelming sadness and healing. Integrating the feelings of sadness, rage, or all of the above with the action should be standard operating procedure for all soldiers who have killed face-to-face. It requires no sophisticated psychological training.¹

I often point out that many of my colleagues in the counseling department at my university tell me that one of the most restorative actions someone can undertake is to intentionally (under the guidance of trained professionals) remember the trauma that brought so much pain—allowing it to become part of the individual’s consciousness. Again, time itself doesn’t heal. Time, care, attention, and the healing hand of God are all needed. Still it is painful to recognize that part of healing can demand revisiting and replaying the pain again.²

God can heal our bodies, our emotions, our relationships—Lord knows God can heal anything and everything. But is it possible for God to heal our memories? 

Photo by Raj Rana on Unsplash

This question was taken up by then Asbury-seminary theologian David Seamands in the year 1985. His provocative little book entitled The Healing of Memories sought to explore the relationship between one’s memory and the healing work of Christ.³ Seamands describes how some counselors in his circle had developed a unique technique of working with patients who had endured some form of trauma. Sitting together, the therapist would invite the person to recount their story of pain. And, as they did, they would then invite the person sharing to imagine God being right there, present, holding them in the very moment they were hurt. At the end of their account, the therapist would ask the person to invite Christ into that memory. Seamands testified that the experience was profoundly healing and restorative. 

Seamand’s book is but one of many that have tackled the subject. A number of other books since have sought to explore how following Jesus and experiencing the life of the Holy Spirit can actually begin the process of restoring our memories. The healing of memories is in line with Jesus’ emphatic teaching to his disciples about the importance and centrality of forgiveness. What is forgiveness but, among other things, the healing of one’s memories? J.W. de Gruchy once wrote that the two couldn’t be separated: “The only way to redeem the past is through the healing of memories, thereby putting to rest that which can only foster bitterness and revenge.”⁴ To forgive another we must be able to allow the healing hand of Christ into the gaping wounds of the past. Forgiveness is the extended love of a scarred memory. “Forgiveness,” once wrote Old Testament scholar John Goldingay, “is the healing of memories in a person who has been hurt or abused...the letting go of a justified sense of bitterness in one who has been unjustly treated by another...all this in imitation of Christ.”

Making room in our lives for the healing work of the Holy Spirit is to welcome into our consciousness the presence of the One who was with us when we were hurt. The Spirit bears witness to hope and healing, yes. But the Spirit also beckons us to remember. Jesus clearly outlined the relationship between the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives and that of our memory. “The Holy Spirit,” Jesus taught in John 14:26, “will teach you all things and remind you of everything I said to you.” The Spirit teaches. But the Spirit also reminds—takes us back to that which has already happened. Denialism is not the work of God. 

The healing of our memories is God’s work of restoring us to what actually happened. This is the very thing that takes place in the book of Acts. Three times in Luke’s account, Paul recounts his transformative conversion experience of Acts 9. And in these three different times the story is told, it is told differently. Paul never shares his story the same way twice. In fact, in each occasion he includes one aspect from his memory that he had left out the time before. In the final account, he adds a whole line to the lips of Jesus that is not initially recorded in Acts 9.⁵ What is happening? I suspect what happens to all of us when we are revivified by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was bringing back to Paul’s memory what actually took place. The Spirit reminds. 

My friend Lyle says that when we make room for the work of the Holy Spirit we make room for what he calls “prophetic hindsight.” We tend to assume that the Spirit reveals things to us about the future. And he does. But what if the Spirit also reveals things to us about the past? This opens us up to doing the hard work of reflecting on our past mistakes and successes—and allowing the Spirit to notice that which he wants us to pay attention to. Which is important. Because we often are tempted to focus on trusting God for the future. The Spirit also invites us to trust God for the past. 

This all matters greatly to me in this season of life. Forgiveness is excruciatingly hard for me. Recently, I’ve been challenged by a mentor to be open to forgiving some deep wounds from the past from a particular person in my life. Deep wounds. Need-to-get-a-therapist wounds. What I’ve learned about myself is that the very thought of a person that I’ve yet to forgive puts a big pit in my stomach. I feel that unforgiveness in the pit of my belly. And it hurts; just the very thought of that person. 

The unforgiveness has held me back from being liberated. And yet, Jesus invites me to “pray for my enemies.” (Mt 5.44) This is one of the most difficult commands of Christ. Because to pray for someone is to have them come to mind. I’d prefer not to think about—let alone pray—for that person. The easiest thing is not to remember them. But the path of Jesus, the one I so desire to take, invites me not only to remember a person that I consider my enemy but to take them before God for the petitioning of their flourishing and well-being. The task is hellish. 

Jesus was brilliant. He is brilliant. To love God is to pray for your enemies. Let me rephrase that: to truly love God is to allow your enemies to come to mind, those pains to come to the front, those memories to be given attention. I recognize that this may sound so painful. And it is. But there is also profound healing in it. 

Here is your homework this week. Sit down and bring to mind a person who wounded you. And pray for them. As you do this, it is likely that your mind will go to the event or moment that they hurt you. Let it be. If you need to invite another person into it: then do it. But allow the Spirit to take you back to that memory. And gently remind you who was there with you grieving the whole way through it. This work will be painful. But it will be important. And may just very begin to lead you to the healing of memories.

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As always, thanks for reading. You can always find me wasting time on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Or check out my podcast with Dr. Nijay Gupta at Slow Theology. If you found this content helpful to your journey, yay! Consider enjoying my most recent book The Gift of Thorns: Jesus, the Flesh, and the War for our Wants, which was released with Zondervan in February of 2024. Within, I explore the topic of human desire from the perspective of Scripture, theology, and experience—with particular interest to how we can be formed into the image of Christ through our desires. In short, it’s about why our cultural mandate to “you do you” is so profoundly unhelpful to the follower of Jesus. You can support my work by reading it! And sharing about your experience. Click on the image below to get yourself a copy.

1. Karl Marlantes, What It Is like to Go to War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011), 32.

2. David Benner says the healing of trauma requires three things: re-experiencing the pain, reinterpreting the hurt, and releasing the anger. Benner, Healing Emotional Wounds (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2016), 63.

3. Seamands, David A., Healing of Memories (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 1985).

4. Gruchy, J.W. De, Reconciliation (London, UK: SCM Press, 2002), 178.

5. “Saul, Saul...it is hard to kick against the goads?” (Ac 26.14)