sorry no pictures, inspiration or fluffy thoughts , just a really long post

dealing with the past

life seems to bring things back to us that we think our over and dealt with.

my past is an ugly one. full of heartache and loss and time i can never get back and the hardest part about it was how it changed me.

i will never be the girl i was before it happened. NEVER.... really. my past wasn't some moment i made a big mistake. no not at all, it was a period of moments and choices i made that forever changed me. those choices eventually began to shape who i was becoming.  i eventually became a very sad girl living a very unhappy, very confused life.  did you know that about me? i've always been happy-go-lucky but there was a time when i was very unhappy and very unlucky (not that i believe in luck).

i remember vividly the day GOD came and showed me it was over, over for me to stop living the way i was. HE provided a way out, he always had. I was finally willing to let HIM back in.  He was always with me but I had become very hardened in my heart. It was time to allow GOD to change me and HE did. HE used 3 very specific things to do that for me.

1st i lost my closest friendships. GOD allowed it and it made me realize i couldn't live like that because my friends were such a important part of my life. it hurt to lose them.

2nd he used my brother to speak GOD'S truth into my life at a time when my heart was so lost. he loved me through my pain.

3rd he led a woman into my life to disciple me and carry my burdens with me and help me through my heartache. she prayed with me and cried with me.

i got my friends back, i got close with my family again and i started living differently. there were so many battles during the first 2 years after. every time i thought i had healed something would come up and i had to fight through it with the help of my discipler.

eventually my past really did become my past. i remember thinking that was so long ago it isn't even fresh anymore.  there were however many years for me of sorrow over the fact that i was not yet married. my closest college and high school friends were all married and having babies and i was not. i would sometimes cry at night in my bed over the loneliness of wanting companionship. i wanted to be content but i wasn't.

i don't remember when exactly but i'm sure it's been almost 3 years now since i stopped hurting over my singleness and began to find joy in it. it wasn't any act of mine but GOD'S enablement. no bragging here just thankful to be on the other side of it. 3 years and 1 day ago exactly is when Judah was born and yes i think that had some hand in it. that little boy changed my whole perspective on life. i never cry at night anymore over loneliness.

3 years of contentment... and nothing can ever take it away. yet, my past has come back, YES the past I thought I had dealt with already, forgiving the person who hurt me, done all the praying, forgiving, etc.

i still forgive yet life has been hard lately and i've been really aware of my past and i don't even know what i am supposed to learn from it or how to deal with it.  i just know it's happening and it's supposed too. i wish i could tell you the happy ending to this post is that i am learning A, B & C but I am still in the process of it.

I was listening to the first song on my blog playlist tonight it's a song my college roomie and i used to love. it's about dreaming you're in heaven. i would listen to it in college and instantly feel so happy. tonight i listened to it to take myself back there and it just reminded me that I am not that girl anymore. it's hard to deal with the reality that a sequence of events forever changed my life. honestly sometimes i want to go back to before that all happened and be the innocent girl i was. i know that's not the christian answer but it's true. it's a struggle sometimes to be aware of the struggles that my past still brings.  they are very few and far between but when they come, they are hard.

I do have hope though. HOPE that this too will pass.  HOPE that GOD is always beside me and that HE knows every heartache i have.  HE gave nehemiah a vision to rebuild the walls of jerusalem that had been burned down. nehemiah did not grow weary and so i will remember nehemiah and his bravery. i am sad but not weary because my hope is not in the sins of my past but in the salvation of my GOD. HE will SAVE me! i know that my past does not define me but i pray that my heart will believe that today when everything seems a bit foggy.