People wait in line for many things. It happens in most stores when we want to buy something. Lines form for boarding planes and getting through security screening. Sometimes people not only wait but even camp out to be first in line for concerts or the first showing of a special movie.

            Last Sunday I saw people line up in order to write the names of loved ones in our Book of Memory. People are willing to wait their turn in order to take a few minutes to inscribe a family member’s name in this book.

            That says a lot about our need to prayerfully hold in memory those who have left this earth.  Dealing with death is hard, very hard. Faith makes it a bit easier. Belief that we are connected in some way through the love of Christ means that we can continue with our lives.

            I have often thanked God for the gift of memory, especially when I am trying to recapture some event from the past. But memory is at its best when we apply it to persons and are able to find, through memory, that our lives are richer for having known and loved them.

            Expressing that memory is worth standing in line for.

“By the rivers of Babylon there we sat weeping when we remembered Zion

On the poplars in its midst we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us

for the words of a song; our tormentors, for joy: “Sing for us a song of Zion!”

But how could we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?

If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget. 

May my tongue stick to my palate if I do not remember you,”

Psalm 137:1-6