There is something powerful about remembering what God has done.

Throughout Scripture, God repeatedly calls His people, to remember, remember His faithfulness, remember His deliverance, and remember the times He showed up when there seemed to be no way out. For Israel, remembering wasn’t simply sitting around thinking about the good old days. They built memorials. They told their children what God had done. They passed those stories from one generation to another so that the works of God would not be forgotten.

Even Jesus, when He instituted the Lord’s Supper, said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Remembering is part of worship. When I remember what God has done in my life, it reminds me of who He is. It strengthens my faith for what I am facing today, and it gives me hope for tomorrow.

But there is one thing God did in my life that took me many years to finally accept. Not because I didn’t believe God could do it. I just couldn’t figure out whether it had actually happened.

Was It Real...or Was It a Dream?

For many years, I walked around with a memory that was so vivid, so clear, and so detailed that I struggled between believing it was real or believing it had been some profound childhood dream.

Year after year, though, I kept leaning toward believing it was real because I simply couldn’t forget it. The memory didn’t seem to disappear. The main details didn’t fade away or turn into something completely different. It remained there in my mind.

At one point, I even began looking into how memories work. What I discovered didn’t prove my experience, nor does science tell us that our memories are perfect; they certainly aren’t. Researchers have found that memories of real experiences can contain sensory, spatial, and contextual details that help anchor them, while also acknowledging that memories can change as we recall them.

That didn’t settle the question for me. If anything, it made me wonder even more: Why had this particular memory remained so vivid for so many years?

Then one day, everything changed.

“Choose Me! Choose Me!”

We were at a family gathering, sitting around talking about the times God had shown up in our lives in powerful ways. Wow. You can’t help but just say wow when people start sharing their testimonies. Just a few of us sitting around a table had some amazing and inspiring stories of God’s faithfulness.

As I shared some of my own testimonies, that childhood memory kept popping into my head. I kept ignoring it, but it kept coming back. It was almost like an eager student sitting in a classroom, raising its hand:

“Choose me! Choose me!”

And I kept saying in my mind, Nope. Not that one.

Finally, when we were almost done talking, I told everyone, “I feel like I need to tell you a story. The only problem is...I don’t know if it was a dream or if it really happened.”

They all looked at me with that strange face people give you when they’re not quite sure where you’re going with something.

But I went ahead anyway.

Here it goes...

The Toy Horses

My sister and I were playing in our playroom. We each had one of those toy horses mounted on springs. My sister had a smaller one, and I had the bigger one. I must have been around seven or eight years old, and my sister was about three years younger than me.

Now, you have to understand something. Back in those days, toy manufacturers apparently didn’t have quite as many restrictions as they have today! I remember that horse having some strong springs, and my skinny little body was bouncing on that thing like a madman. In my mind, I’m sure I was riding that horse like I was saving the entire Wild West.

Then I lost my grip.

I flew off the horse, and when I landed, a horrific scene unfolded. I landed near the doorway of the room, where a metal rail held down the linoleum flooring. Unfortunately, part of that rail had become damaged and was sticking upward, creating a sharp edge, and my right knee landed directly on it.

I sat up and looked at my knee in horror. My sister ran over, sat beside me, and immediately said, “I’m going to tell Mommy.”

Somehow, even in the middle of all of this, I managed to pin her down.

“NO!”

I remember saying it nervously. I was scared. Really scared.

Then Something Happened

My knee had been ripped open. I could see deep inside because there was a hole around my kneecap. Then something began rising from the opening. The best way I can describe it is that it looked like a thin stick or twig.

I was horrified, and my sister was horrified.

Then my sister and I saw something with our own eyes that I have never forgotten. The piece that was sticking out began going back down until we couldn’t see it anymore. Then the flesh began closing. We watched as my knee sealed itself, and then the skin closed over it.

No scar. Nothing.

The knee that moments before had been ripped open looked completely normal. My sister and I just stared at it. We were amazed.

And then perhaps the most “kid” part of this entire story happened:

We got right back on those horses and kept playing!

I know.

Kids.

There Was Just One Problem

For years afterward, I remembered what happened, but I couldn’t fully accept it. Had God really healed my knee right in front of us? Or had I experienced some incredibly vivid childhood dream and carried it with me all these years?

I didn’t want to manufacture a miracle. I didn’t want to call something an act of God just because I wanted it to be one. So I lived with the question.

Until that family gathering.

Because after I finished telling the story, something happened that I had not expected:

My sister remembered it too.

She was able to recount the same experience. She had been there. She had seen it.

Suddenly I wasn’t dealing only with a childhood memory buried somewhere inside my own mind. There had been another little kid sitting beside me.

A witness.

My sister.

That was the moment I finally accepted something I had struggled to accept for years:

God had performed a miracle in my life.

Now I Understand My Praise a Little Better

I’m 57 years old as I write this, and sometimes when I’m out taking a long walk, my mind goes back to that little boy sitting on the floor staring at his knee. I can’t help myself. I have to thank God.

I’m walking on that knee.

After all these years, I’m still walking on it.

I am a living testimony of what God can do.

And perhaps that also explains a little something about the way I’ve worshiped God throughout my life. For more than 30 years of leading worship, I couldn’t stay still. I jumped. I stomped. I played the piano with everything I had. There was joy behind it. There was gratitude behind it. There was a profound thankfulness for the mercy and power of God upon my life, and I pray that somehow that joy touched the hearts of the people who worshiped with me.

Maybe sometimes people saw a worship leader jumping around behind a piano.

But God knew something else was happening.

I was worshiping Him with legs. He had shown mercy too.

I was stomping with a knee that constantly reminds me: God has been good to me.

Don’t Forget What God Has Done

Maybe that’s one reason. Scripture tells us so often to remember. Life keeps moving. Years become decades. New problems appear. Yesterday’s answered prayer gets replaced by today’s unanswered one.

And if we’re not careful, we can become so consumed with what we’re asking God to do next that we forget to celebrate what He has already done.

Remember the door. He opened. Remember the provision that came at exactly the right time. Remember the prayer. He answered. Remember the person He sent. Remember the situation you thought you would never survive.

Remember the healing.

Remember the deliverance.

Remember the mercy.

Remember where you were, and look at where you are now.

And then tell somebody about it. Tell your children. Tell your family. Write it down. Celebrate it. Because remembering what God has done isn’t simply looking backward.

It’s worship.

And as for me? If God gives me another opportunity to stand on a stage and lead worship, guess what I’m going to do?

I’m going to jump, I’m going to stomp, and I’m going to run.

As long as God gives me the strength to do it, I’m going to do it unto the Lord.

Because now, more than ever, I know exactly why I’m jumping.