Life Markers

Life Markers -

Markers are something people in fields of editing use to mark something they wish to revisit at a later date. For example in video editing you can put markers in different parts of the "time line" to make note of something, or to remember exactly where it is that you want to come back to.


Life markers - is a concept that started when I was very little, although I never assigned a vocabulary to it 'till now. I've also never given it much thought, but now in retrospect, I think it's fascinating that the brain would do something like this.

What is a "Life Marker" ?

It's something that is consciously used to remember a specific moment in time where you're in the present thinking ahead about the future hindsight of the present. So you're using your foresight to mark a place in history that has not yet occurred for a future review of said event using hindsight.

I have many moments in my life where I can look back and remember looking forward. When I was a kid in the 6th grade I remember my bus pulling up my gravel road after school to drop me off, as we turned the corner I remember staring out the window thinking: "Wow time takes forever to go by, I've been in school forever and I'm only half way through, I want to remember this exact moment and I want to look back on it when I'm done with school. I can't wait until I graduate."

I remember being in the Dominican Republic sitting outside under a Carribean roof made of straw,enjoying freshly made juice, watching traffic go by and writing a letter to a friend, and in my nostoglia I longed for my friends and family back home. Even though I was perfectly content with where I was and with what I was doing in the Dom. Rep. I experienced a fleeting moment of anxiety in where I wanted my year to be up so I could be reunited with loved ones. And so in the moment I thought that moment would never arrive I said - "Erik remember this moment so you can look back on it".

The most recent marker in my "life time-line" rests on the month of May - I remember sitting on the newly carpeted floor of a house I was remodeling back in Oregon, thinking - "I can't wait until I'm in China".

Just now, as I was saying a short prayer before bed, all those marked memories came flooding into my mind right after I had prayed: "Lord help me to remember that I needn't worry about tomorrow because you are here to lead me, and remind me that you have the master plan of my life and are in control of everything that is and everything that will be." He reminded me of all the times I felt like time would not pass, the moments when what I was seeking seemed so out of my reach and impossible to achieve. He reminded me that He led me through them all.

Its amazing how life is one big accumulation of events. Who would've thought back in the 6th grade, let alone 6 months ago, I would be in China? Well I'm here, and even though I've made it, I still think back to those nights I prayed for Him to work it out so I could come to China, and it boggles the mind.

When I try and connect the dots on the series of events leading up to my present situation, I am left decidedly feeling that those suceeding events are a higly improbable set of events(as in they could've never happend by random chance), which leads me to arrive at the realization that He is always taking care of me and as a result I am left feeling blessed. When I contemplate how it has all worked out, or how any of the amazing things that have happend to me have come to pass, I realize that everything on my life's timeline has been a life marker made possible by the life maker.