It’s time to stop letting your past define your future. Easier said than done, right?! Especially when your past includes bad decisions that haunt you.
Perhaps it was a damaging relationship, a sinful choice, or a harmful habit. Whatever it may be, the resulting shame feeds the lie that because we missed the mark, there’s no way forward.
But that’s not true, sister! Your past does not determine who you’re becoming because God can redeem what was once broken.
We are all looking for peace, right? When it comes down to it though, what keeps us from experiencing peace is either living in the past or living for the future. We bounce back and forth between obsessing over a past we can’t change and worrying about a future we can’t control. And the result? We miss what God has for us here and now.
Growing up as a Chinese American daughter of a mail-order bride and a busboy in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Bonnie Gray never felt like she belonged. She spent her childhood hiding “Chinese Bonnie” who lived in a dysfunctional home in poverty in order to be accepted as cheerful “American Bonnie” who lived a life that looked like everybody else’s.
She tried to throw away pieces of her past—the ones she thought no one wanted—but in the process, she discovered God was tenderly gathering all the broken fragments to build a new story of faith and joy. She learned that it’s only when we learn to embrace the truth of our past that we can finally make sense of our present and celebrate what truly matters.
Change the past? Huh?
Do you think maybe I’m being a little presumptuous — or maybe a little ignorant — to even suggest that changing the past is possible?
Oh girl, I wish I could change some things about my past and I know you do too!
We’ve all got stuff… stuff that happened to us that we wish we could change. We’ve all got stuff… stuff we’ve done we wish we could undo.
But, we can’t.
