~sigh~ Another humiliating story about me

Have you ever done something and you really wished you could just go back in time about 20 seconds and have a do-over? I’ve had many of those! But one of my most memorable was when Mark and I were dating. I was crazy about him and after some time apart, we ran into one another and he asked me out again. We both had some things to do yet so we decided to meet up later and went our separate ways.

Those separate ways actually kept us driving on the same road for about 5 minutes until he turned one way and I went the other. I had been watching him drive (because I was just that goo-goo about him!) out my rear view mirror. As he turned the other way, I just had to watch him drive away as long as I possibly could.

I watched too long.

By the time I turned back to look where I was going, I was headed 30 miles an hour straight into the back of a car that was stopped at a red light. As I slammed into that car, the force of the impact sent it crashing into the car in front of it. (This is not the actual photo of my accident, it's just for effect :))

Thankfully, no one was hurt, but they were not happy! It was not a shining moment in my life. Talk about regret! How could I be so stupid? Well, I was. And now other people were paying for my mistakes too.

Do you know why I caused that accident? Ok, besides the obvious. The reason was that I was looking behind me in my rear view mirror instead of looking in front of me to what was ahead.

How many of us spend our lives “looking in the rear view mirror” when we should be looking at what is in front of us?

The pain of the past. Instead of forgiving others (or ourselves) we continue to think about what happened yesterday or years ago and let it define what happens to us today. If we spend life looking in the rear view mirror, we are destined to destroy what lies ahead.

Put the past behind you or it will become a stumbling block.

I don’t know what lies in your past, but I do know that you don’t have to let it dictate your future. Do what you need to do, to put your past behind you. Maybe it’s forgive someone, maybe it’s forgive yourself. Maybe it is to cry out to God to heal the past, and possibly get some counsel on how to do that.

Your future is hopeful and purposeful, but you will never know that if you keep you eyes and thoughts on your past.

Phil 3:13-14
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
NIV

God loves and adores you and has forgiven you. Look at this verse- it does not say “when you stopped sinning and got it all right…” but it says WHEN you were dead in your sins and sinful nature, He forgave you.

Col 2:13
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins
NIV

Time to look forward, your future in God is amazing!