I feel like that in some of my best moments. Like I'm hard-pressed, trying to keep every thought contained and in one place. But one thought tips over into another thought, and away I go again. Goop everywhere.
This week, maybe even this past month or two, the thoughts have been mostly centred around one thing.
....Well, someone did pose the question, "If Jesus lived on earth today, what kind of vehicle would He drive?" That has also taken a good bit of roiling goop, but I think I may have eliminated quite a few of the possibilities. (Message me if you want to follow that train of thought.) But mostly this week, I've been thinking about this: I have a past.
Even sitting here, writing this, I can feel the pink goop exploding across the room, memories and haunts, insane-hysterical laughter and dark-pit times. I have times I want to go back to and moments I'm trying to shove into back recesses of closets, never to see the light of day.
These last few weeks, as I've been looking at a increasingly sad, lacking-in-a-professional-way, resume, I feel like screaming out, I have a past! I have experience. I have so many skills. I just don't know how to put it in a resume.
Making new friends and catching up with old friends, I feel like saying, I have a past. So many moments have changed my heart. To old friends, I want to say, but I'm different than I was. To new friends, I want to say, if only you knew me then. Because so much in the past few years has developed me in the now. Hurts and healing. Old battle wounds and fresh scars. New purpose, old dreams.
Even if you haven't walked with me through it, I have a past.
We all do, I suppose. Everyone has been somewhere, gone through something, to get to where they are today. But since August, it's my past that keeps drawing me back to Psalm 66:8-12. Paraphrased, it says, "You, Oh God, have tested us, You have tried us as silver is tried. You laid a crushing burden on our backs, You brought us through fire and water, and yet You have brought us into a place of abundance." My past.
Many parts of my past embarrass me. There are so many things I would rather have NO ONE EVER KNOW. From the surprisingly stupid to the depressingly dark, there are a lot of things I would rather have remain hidden. And I won't lie, there are many moments where I thought God had completely abandoned me on some lonely corner of the world, be it Canada, the Cook Islands, Australia, Vanuatu, Thailand, the list could go on.
There have been many degrees of moments, fire, water, and burdens. But read the end of Psalm 66:12: yet you have brought me into a place of abundance...
I often joke about my old age. But I'm really not that old. Only 26 as a matter of fact (for any of you trying to do the math, yep, proud to be an 80s child). Still, I can see how God has brought me through testing into abundance, already, in such a short period of time.
From one corner of the world to the other, I've seen His hand move in many different ways.
And more importantly, I've seen His hand move in my heart, through my past, and I trust, into my future. Whatever country I live in, whatever my life will one day look like, He's the One that's shaped my past in order to bring me into the present, and will walk with me through the rest of my life.
Sometimes, we don't think that things can get better as they go on. How can something get more beautiful? But God grows us in richness and colour and depth. The more colourful our past, the more beautiful He can make our future.
At breakfast with friends one morning this past week, someone pointed out Paul the apostle. We think of Paul as this crazy hero of the Bible. Which he is. But he was also human. And he had a past. Like a super messed-up past. He was responsible for the death of many Christians, and God used him to build the church. But he had to live with his past. He wrote so beautifully about grace, because he had to experience greater depths of God's grace.
It gives me hope. A dirty, stained past does not need to equal no future. God's hand is continually making a path for me into an abundance of life.
He has my moments. All of them. And furthermore, I don't need to be ashamed of them. Without them, I would't be the me I am today.
So, today, I'm reigning in that pink goop. I'm cleaning up the mess and taking control of the fear that reigns when I think of how other people see me. Because, I am a child of God. He's simply, not finished with me yet.
These last few weeks, as I've been looking at a increasingly sad, lacking-in-a-professional-way, resume, I feel like screaming out, I have a past! I have experience. I have so many skills. I just don't know how to put it in a resume.
Making new friends and catching up with old friends, I feel like saying, I have a past. So many moments have changed my heart. To old friends, I want to say, but I'm different than I was. To new friends, I want to say, if only you knew me then. Because so much in the past few years has developed me in the now. Hurts and healing. Old battle wounds and fresh scars. New purpose, old dreams.
Even if you haven't walked with me through it, I have a past.
We all do, I suppose. Everyone has been somewhere, gone through something, to get to where they are today. But since August, it's my past that keeps drawing me back to Psalm 66:8-12. Paraphrased, it says, "You, Oh God, have tested us, You have tried us as silver is tried. You laid a crushing burden on our backs, You brought us through fire and water, and yet You have brought us into a place of abundance." My past.
Many parts of my past embarrass me. There are so many things I would rather have NO ONE EVER KNOW. From the surprisingly stupid to the depressingly dark, there are a lot of things I would rather have remain hidden. And I won't lie, there are many moments where I thought God had completely abandoned me on some lonely corner of the world, be it Canada, the Cook Islands, Australia, Vanuatu, Thailand, the list could go on.
There have been many degrees of moments, fire, water, and burdens. But read the end of Psalm 66:12: yet you have brought me into a place of abundance...
I often joke about my old age. But I'm really not that old. Only 26 as a matter of fact (for any of you trying to do the math, yep, proud to be an 80s child). Still, I can see how God has brought me through testing into abundance, already, in such a short period of time.
From one corner of the world to the other, I've seen His hand move in many different ways.
And more importantly, I've seen His hand move in my heart, through my past, and I trust, into my future. Whatever country I live in, whatever my life will one day look like, He's the One that's shaped my past in order to bring me into the present, and will walk with me through the rest of my life.
At breakfast with friends one morning this past week, someone pointed out Paul the apostle. We think of Paul as this crazy hero of the Bible. Which he is. But he was also human. And he had a past. Like a super messed-up past. He was responsible for the death of many Christians, and God used him to build the church. But he had to live with his past. He wrote so beautifully about grace, because he had to experience greater depths of God's grace.
It gives me hope. A dirty, stained past does not need to equal no future. God's hand is continually making a path for me into an abundance of life.
He has my moments. All of them. And furthermore, I don't need to be ashamed of them. Without them, I would't be the me I am today.
So, today, I'm reigning in that pink goop. I'm cleaning up the mess and taking control of the fear that reigns when I think of how other people see me. Because, I am a child of God. He's simply, not finished with me yet.
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