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How many times do we sit and reminisce?
Reminisce. To sit back and enjoy or take delight in the memories of pasts events. This can be seemingly innocent.
At other times it can be very dangerous.
Why you might ask?
I don't know about any of you but a lot of those things from my past that bring me immense delight were things that I had no business doing.
Now don't get me wrong; it's fine to have memories of Granny in the kitchen cooking her red velvet cake and humming some unknown to you spiritual. It's okay to remember those childhood candies that you just can't seem to find anymore. Heck it's even okay to remember how you used to stay up with your girlfriend in the midnight hours watching Wonder Years.
The dangerous things I'm talking about is sitting around reminiscing on the times when you were running the street with mr. hotty with a body. Or how about mr. cute, I gotta have you. (Oh come on, I know me and my girlfriends weren't the only ones that gave guys code names so no one else knew who we were talking about. Right ladies?)
Or maybe you weren't all about the boys like me and you used to curse like a sailor, steal cars or something, I don't know...something bad:)
Anyways what I am trying to say is don't hold on to the darkness.
When you professed your faith in Christ you put on your new self. No longer are you supposed to be walking around in the dark. You must not look back coveting what is behind you. Walk forward and abide in truth.
Genesis 19:26 says that
"But Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt".
Let's talk about that for a moment.
If you do a quick study of this chapter you'll learn that two angels approached Sodom and Lot invited them into his home. When word got around to all of the men of the town they came to Lot's house and wanted to have s*x with the two angels.
The angels blinded the men and warned Lot and his family that they must flee from Sodom because the Lord was going to destroy it because of their sin. They told them to flee and don't look back or they would perish. Lot's wife looked back and was turned to a pillar of salt.
Even if Lot's wife didn't physically turn around, if she coveted her past life and didn't want to leave it even after the Lord instructed her to leave she was disobedient. Physically or figuratively speaking she was instructed to flee and not look back.
In Ephesians 4:22-24 it states
"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."
Obviously fond memories of loved ones and your childhood don't scream danger unless the memories that you are holding on to cause you to yearn for those deceitful desires that you are supposed to put off.
So you decide. Reminisce on your favorite candy and your favorite cartoon, not on all that sinful mess that left you feeling broken.
Make peace with your past and leave it there.
Now for real, did you and your girlfriends give guys code names?;)
4 comments:
Code names? Girl please! If that was all you and your girlfriends came up with, y'all were truly amateurs. In addition to the code names, my girlfriends and I came up with our own written code. When we wrote letters we used real codes such as &@(^!) to take the place of a specific name just in case the letter got lost (or if it happened to float out of our jeans pocket while mama was doing the laundry).
We tried writing the entire letter in code using symbols for each letter of the alphabet but it took way too long to decode. We thought we were so slick. (LOL) Now, that I have parented teenagers, I realize how silly we were.
But I do agree with you about finding peace with your past. And my ex-husband was determined to make sure I found peace with mine.
While we were moving into our first apartment a couple of items from my past mysteriously disappeared.
I had letters, pictures, and other noteworthy things all put together in a neat little scrapbook. And without consulting me (even denying that he did it) he performed a magic trick with my stuff, but this was no illusion. My stuff was gone for real!
My point in sharing this is, it taught me a valuable lesson. (and him too, at the time just not in a good way) It forced me to look at my motives and intentions for wanting to hang on to this stuff. When I calmed down and truly thought about it, I realized that it really had no significance. I was trying to hang on to what used to be instead of moving forward to a new chapter in my lfe.
Now that right there is something! We used to do code in grade school but by time we got to college you know it was a full blown digital circus so we made sure to protect those passwords :)
I don't think I held onto anything from past relationships, but that's mostly because when I broke up with such and such I usually shredded teddy bears to pieces, shredded or (burned) letters, and threw away pictures. By time I got to that point I was definitely fed up and ready to keep it moving lol.
Girl, my twin sister and I have all sorts of code names for the boys. Most of them were stupid like, "Purple car". Now, that has nothing to do with how the boy looked!!
You touched a cord in this post because God has been dealing with me on looking back at the past - the things that held me back. I think that it's okay to look back when you realize just how far God has brought you from. Great post!
I'm definitely with you on that Simone, He has brought me a mighty long way indeed and that's the testimony that we should share!
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