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I was recently invited to provide a monthly column for our local newspaper, the Germantown News, titled "Focus on Faith." Their desire is for clergy in the area to provide regular columns on life and faith. As you prepare for New Year's Day, I'm sharing here my first column, to appear in the January 18 edition.
Also, I will be taking a brief break from our daily devotionals. The next Ponderings devotional will be Monday, January 16.
Handling The Past . . . Preparing For The Year Ahead
One of my favorite movies over the last many years was Cold Mountain starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, and Renee Zellweger. The movie was based on the bestselling book written by Charles Frazier and published in 1997. It's a moving and yet sobering Civil War piece telling the story of Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate Army, on his way to return to the love of his life, Ada Monroe. Inman and Ada are briefly reunited before he is tragically killed. In the movie version Ada speaks some compelling words as she sums up the war itself and the unfavorable circumstances she has had to face: What we have lost will never be returned to us. The land will not heal - too much blood. All we can do is learn from the past and make peace with it.
Handling the past is part of life's journey for each and everyone of us. It's an opportunity magnified, I think, when we enter a new year and find ourselves more reflective of the ebb and flow of our lives. While many will not make New Year's resolutions per se, we all tend to do some reflecting on where we've been and where we're headed.
Let me offer some brief, but hopefully insightful thoughts on handling the past:
- Name the past for what it is. You can't undo it or redo it. You can't pretend it didn't happen. It did. Facing the truth of the past is spiritually and emotionally necessary if we're going to find healing for the present and future.
- Pay attention to the lessons you learned. Every past circumstance, every past occurrence - whether painful or rewarding - teaches us something. Spending sincere time knowing the things we need to avoid in the future or the things we need to embrace is part of both our healing and our growth.
- Recognize that while God doesn't promise everything will go our way, He does promise that He will be with us every step of the way guiding, encouraging, and strengthening.
Minnie Louise Harkins said it well when she wrote:
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'
And he replied,
'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'
So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.
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