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The past has no cure

I have carried you since you left your mother’s womb. I carried you when you were born, and I will still be carrying you when you are old. Your hair will turn gray, and I will still carry you. I made you, and I will carry you to safety. (Isaiah 46:3-4 ERV)

There are times we just need to be reminded of God's faithfulness toward each of us - today may be one of those times for some of us. Regardless of what you are going through, if you look hard enough, you might just realize that God is the one who has been carrying you for quite some time! From moment to moment, we may forget who is at work in our lives, believing God has abandoned us on occasion simply because things get a little tougher than we would have wanted. Whenever we get to feeling like we are abandoned, we just need to look to our Creator - for the one who creates will never abandon his creation.


It was Elizabeth the First who said the past could not be cured. Too many times we go about our day's efforts trying to improve upon (or cure) what yesterday brought our way. What is past is past - what we are left with is sometimes a little bit of the aftermath of the past, but we cannot ever change the past. What we can allow to happen is for God to change us in our present so our past mishaps and misgivings don't have to be repeated. The past may not be cured, but it sure can be repeated, can't it?


The seasons of the past that weren't all that great give each of us moments of grief because we would have done things differently if we only knew the outcome was going to be what it turned out to be. We wouldn't have spoken those words that cut to the quick. We wouldn't have allowed the distance to come that is now like a cavernous abyss we see no way of crossing. We wouldn't have chosen that route of downward compromise. Those choices were made, but today's choices remain to be made. What we focus on is not the ones we made in the past, but the ones we can make in our present.


Choices made incorrectly in the past haunt us in the present and make choices today harder because we may fear repeating them or really don't know what choices will yield different results. This is when we lean into Jesus' care over our lives just a little bit harder. We stop doubting his provision and start trusting him to help us do things differently - making better choices today, not so much to cure the past, but to improve the present and make way for the future. Just sayin!

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