Lessons in Looking Back

 I posted the following as my Facebook status last week:

"Sometimes just knowing there's a name for what you're living with is a relief... even if it changes nothing, yet (before you ask, it's nothing serious going on, don't worry)"

While I'm not going to share in this space what exactly this is (at least not yet), there have been things related to it that I've been thinking about in the days since. And I wonder if some of those things are lessons that all of us could learn from.

When we have the perspective of looking back, as I have in this case, it can be easy to see some things as obvious that were missed at the time. We have a choice then, about how we respond. 

We can choose to get mad or frustrated or upset by the realization.

Or, we can acknowledge that our perspective is different now and we're seeing differently because we're not in the middle of it anymore.

Some of my favourite books on my shelf right now are the mismatched set of commentaries, my Grandma gave me when she could no longer read herself. I had no idea the treasure trove of lessons from my Grandma I was receiving alongside them. They just sat on my bookshelf for a while. Until the day I decided to pick one of them up. When I opened it, I discovered it was full of my Grandma's underlines of things that spoke to her and pieces of paper with her responses to what she read there.

One of the things I noticed over and over in what I read both in the commentary and in her notes, was her realization and desire not to live stuck in the past. To her it was very clear in Scripture that Jesus had come and died on a cross and rose again to free us from our past, so we can begin to live the lives God intends for us. 

She would regularly remind me of this in our conversations on the golf course. Every time I would start talking about something in the past, she would ask me the same things:

Are there people in this situation you need to make things right with? Don't wait to do that.

Are there things you need to confess and repent of? Don't wait to do that.

Are there lessons you can learn from this? What are they?

Once you've done these things, does it do you any good to keep living in regret or anger over what has happened? 

Then she would remind me that it was time let it go. That it was time to leave it with God and walk forward into what was coming next.

She would share about how she didn't always do this well. She wasn't telling me to do this because she thought it was easy. She knew it was challenging, but she also knew it was worth it.

I've been thinking a lot about this lesson since I shared the words I did on Facebook last week. In my case, this is something where I could look back and live in regret or anger, but it really does no good at this point. That just keeps me stuck in the past and not getting on with living the life God has for me now.

I think is something that applies to so much of our lives. And I'm grateful for the regular reminders from my Grandma while I was growing up.