why is it that we remember certain things and not others? why is it that we can try so hard to remember something and still forget it, yet we sometimes remember the things we wish we could forget? Sometimes we remember the most pointless things. other times we cant remember the things we swore we would never forget. Is this just a product of the busy lives we lead? Is there some way to remember those memories that we know we've forgotten? Most importantly, when we forget something, is it truly gone? how do we know when we've truly forgotten a memory? Sometimes it's the smallest little signals that trigger a memory to resurface in our consciousness. sometimes we dont even know what triggered the memory to return to our minds. How do we know when a memory has truly left our state of being, never to resurface again? what is forgetting? is it simply the lack of rememberance? what happens to the memory once it has been forgotten? is it sent to the back of the brain, beyond the reach of conscious thought? is there some other logical reason to explain forgetting? when we forget something, we don't even know we have forgotten it. if an event is forgotten by all, how can we prove it ever happened? is there a way to force a memory to come back into the light of remembrance? why do memories change over time? sometimes we believe we remember something in perfect detail, only to be proven wrong; that it happened differently than we so confidently thought. some memories change to become more beautiful; others change to become more cruel. in truth, we are bound by our memory. we believe our memory to be true and we operate our moods, our emotions, our actions on those memories. our memories make up who we are. without our memories we would not know who our friends are, where our home is, where we belong, to whom are we loved by. our memories define how we grow. who we become is based upon how we remember certain events of our pasts. it is our past that gives us the sense of security in where we have been, what challenges we have overcome, which challenges of life we have defeated and which we have yet to conquer. how can we base so much of ourselves on something so unpredictable as our memories, something so faulty that we dont even realize when we are wrong? how can memories disappear and reappear with so little conscious thought? how can memories fade away and change when we try so desperately to keep them so close to our hearts? there are so many questions with no answers to be found here on Earth. God chooses what we remember and what we forget. our faulty memories are a tool of His to help us become who He wants us to be. He uses our memories to help us forgive in some cases. other times, He allows us to remember so we keep a lesson of life close to our hearts. even other times, He uses our forgetting to allow us to stop remembering the pain from events long past. God uses our memories for our good. He allows us to remember what must be remembered and slips away the memories better forgotten from our minds smoothly, painlessly. Even in events we cannot remember forgetting, His mercy is evident.