The Past: Shaping, Sharing and Learning

"Your past does not determine who you are today. Your past prepares you for who you are to become tomorrow" 

     I'm not sure where it was that I heard this, so I can't even give proper credit to whoever said it. However, I feel that this is very true and applicable in all of our lives. How often do we find ourselves dwelling on the past in attempts to prove that we are unworthy of what we have received in the present or even wondering how we ended up where we are? I hear it every week and practically every day. For some reason we, as humans, camp out in our past because we think that that is what defines who we are. Could we ever be more wrong?

    That past is usually defined as being a place in time that has gone by or "passed." However, we generally leave out the other part of the definition: no longer existing. Our past is only there in what we leave for the future and in our memories. It is there to remind us of who we once were and are no longer. It serves a purpose in shaping who we are now, not to hold us back from who we are becoming.

   Now, I'm not the kind of person who purposefully sets out to make new friends. It's one of those "I'm good where I am, with the people I'm with and I don't need to change it" kind of things. This is one of the things that I didn't necessarily want to change is college, I just wanted to work on it. This meant that instead of reserving myself as much as I usually would, I tried to be more open. Depending on the day, I'd say that I'm doing pretty well with this. This has been both an experiment of whether I can do this and a learning experience of how to deal with people. In this, I have met some people that I am comfortable enough to consider friends that I hope to keep far into the future. One night I was up late in a room with my friend when we started sharing stories. You see, I'm the kind of person who enjoys stories and learns from them.  

   Somewhere in the middle of high school stories and camp stories, we actually started sharing genuine stories. These weren't any old stories, these were stories of our past. My first thought was "why am I in this room talking about all my failures when I could just be talking about all my achievements?" It would have made my life sound flawless and picture-perfect, but that's not what my past is. My past, like so many others, is broken and messy and imperfect. I don't want to make it out to be anything that it isn't. 

     Like I mentioned before, many (many) people have imperfect and broken pasts. If not physically broken, they are probably mentally or spiritually broken. There are a couple problems with this:

1- Every broken person thinks that they are the only one. 

This is a trap. Don't give in! The joy about talking to other people about the past is that you can learn. You can learn of what they did, you can learn what not to do, and you can learn how to do better next time. It's really a great thing if you think about it. Imagine a world where no one shared any of their failures or mistakes with inventions or technology. There would so many repeats and duplicates that we wouldn't know what to do! Why don't we do that with our lives? It would make it easier to see what works and what doesn't, wouldn't it?

2- We cannot fix ourselves. 

I could tell you that you can, but that would be lying and I try to refrain from that. Speaking from experience, I can say that you can try as much as you want, and still not be able to patch up your own problems. The good news is that you don't have to do it by yourself!

     We serve a God that loves us despite all of our flaws. He already knows what we have seen and dealt with. He knows. The problem comes when we, as mere imperfect humans, think that we can handle everything by ourselves. It's kind of funny when you think about it: We, as humans, think that we can handle everything on our own. No wonder why we fall and mess up!

     In no way am I saying that I have this all figured out, I don't really think that I will ever have it 100% down. What I am saying is that I am slowly learning from my mistakes, kind of like I'm learning to talk to people. It's humorous how things start to come together..... 

    

Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.