Letting Go of the Old to Embrace the New - 2

I've been trying to figure out exactly how to do this. There's some part of me that wants to clutch the old, hold on for dear life, like a dog gnawing on a bone long denuded of anything tasty. So here's the question: why not? If that's what "comes naturally" to me, why not continue? Because, God has new, wonderful, challenging, sometimes painful, sometimes fun, very worthwhile experiences for me to tackle, but they are that: NEW. New ones. Not old, dead, hard and cold ones. New, meaty, chewy -- able to sustain me, things I can do something with/about. (You know, the Serenity prayer....) If I'm busy gnawing my old bits of the past, I can't have the life he wants for me today. I'll miss it. And that would be a shame.

Yeah, it's been a process. I've been working on this for a while. Too long. Enough. So, I'm doing it. No more gnawing. I'm saying "goodbye" to the old year, and the old things, so I can embrace the new.

Lord, I give them all to you. The dead pieces, the ones that have no place in my life today. I've done what I can with them, now they're yours. You deal with them. All of them. I'm choosing to move on to all you have for me today, and tomorrow. Please forgive me for not trusting you with the past sooner. Help me to stay in today, and look forward to tomorrow, with faith. "For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day." (2 Timothy 1:12). So take care of it, ok? Thanks.

So... what's new?

Letting Go of the Old to Embrace the New

A new year is about to begin.

God's been speaking to me for a few weeks about the need to let go of the old, so we can embrace the new. It's clear in the calendar, marking inanimate time -- you can't start a new year without first leaving the old one. Nice and sequential. The Old Year is ready to die, with Baby New Year sitting right there, poised to take the stage, unwrinkled and unafraid, bursting with opportunity, waiting to begin life.

As I think about this, it seems to me that people are time travelers, after all. We can live in the present, a few choose to live in the future, but many of us seem to live much of our time in the past. I often do. And isn't it ridiculous? Mostly it isn't the pleasant past, but the difficult times, the painful ones, that occupy my thoughts way too often.

Of course there is a value to looking at the old, to see what can be gleaned. Is there anything I need to pursue? Fix? Change? Can I learn something, perhaps gain some wisdom or grow in some way? But there is a limit, and it comes a lot quicker than most of us seem to think. For me, what it comes down to is this: Lord, what do you have to say about this? Anything you want to say about it all?

When he's done, I should be done. You and I should be able to let it go, and move on. Ah, there's the rub.

It's hard for me to let go of some old things. It's painful to let go of broken relationships, things that didn't go well, mistakes, betrayals. What do I think, that the next time I go through that conversation or series of events in my head, that there's going to be a different outcome? That I'll get to say what I should have said, get things off my chest, make myself feel better, defend myself, make it all work? As my friend Don told me a few months ago, "Give up all hope of ever having a better past." Somebody ought to carve that in stone.

It can be tough to say "goodbye" to the good things, too. I could echo Nicodemus, asking how I might return to the womb. Honestly, sometimes I wistfully look back to the warm and fuzzy nest of a life I had before I accepted this call of planting and pastoring a church. My husband Paul tells me I would be bored to return to the way things were. I know he's right, but sometimes, if I let myself look back, I ache for it.

God never stands still, and neither do we. I have changed, the nest has changed, the world has changed. Every person or situation of my past has changed. God is the only element that never changes. Though he seems to, because I am still learning about him. Guess I always will.

So back to the title. Next post.