What is this thing?

What never leaves you? No matter how much you wish it would, what is this thing that is always there? What is this thing that even super powers can't change?

For a while I can pretend it is gone, I can pretend it belonged to someone else but then something happens to remind me that it never left. That it was just there waiting to pull me into the muck and darkness. Then I'm overwhelmed with the realization that it will always be there. No matter how far I go or how much time goes by. It will ALWAYS be there. I can NEVER get rid of it. Defeat takes hold and I begin to suffer from ingrown eyeballs.

Then I remember that everyone has one of these and I have to ask myself, "how do they cope with it"? Do they suffer or find joy in it? Maybe I'm the only one that when they rediscover they have this they are sad and ashamed. Maybe I'm the only one that doesn't like theirs. Maybe....

What is this thing that never leaves? Why do I allow it to haunt me? "I allow it"....hmmm. Maybe it doesn't have power over me. Maybe I do have control. Maybe, I am the one who gives it power? What is this thing? It is your past.

Will it control you or do you control it? How do you defeat it? There is only one way I've learned and that is to not let it into your present. Oh it will try to sneak in but you must quickly shut the door. It is not your past that determines your future but your present. And really, none of us are guaranteed a future so why worry about what is not here? No I think it is this moment that we are living in that we are most alive. This moment right now is the only one that really counts. What are you doing in this moment? Wasting it on the past?

Our past may have helped to shape us but it does not make us who we are now. I remember a time many years ago this incredible young man came into my life. A good man. An honest man. We fell in love and he asked me to marry him. I wanted that moment more than anything and when it came I hated it. This man didn't really know me. He didn't know who I was. He didn't know my past. I loved and respected him too much to lead into a marriage with someone he didn't know and so instead of saying "yes", I said "you don't really know me". I poured out my past to him and cried while I waiting for him to ask me to leave. He moved in closer to me, took my face into his hands and looked me right in the eyes. He said, "that person is not who is sitting here with me, I fell in love with you, all I see is this beautiful person right in front of me who I've just asked to marry me, who hasn't yet answered my question." That was about 30 years ago and the answer was yes.

A brief encounter that couldn't have lasted more than 10 minutes but it taught me a lesson that I continually learn over and over again. It is now, that counts. Not yesterday. I am who I am in this moment in time. The past no longer has power over me because I won't allow it. It doesn't own me, I own it. And because I own it, it only has the value over me that I decide to place on it. No, this thing called the past will not define who I am in this moment.

I am a child of God. Forgiven. Loved. In fact, He calls me His "beloved". Time is meaningless to God. It didn't even exist until He created it. God sees my whole life, from beginning to end and knows me better than I know myself. He places a high value on me. I don't deserve this favor but He grants it anyway. He is the potter, I am clay. Mold me and make me. This is what I pray.

Dear Lord,
Thank you for loving and molding me. All of me. Past, present, and God willing, future. AMEN

Isaiah 64:8
You, LORD, are our Father. We are nothing but clay, but you are the potter who molded us.