It Is Never Too Late

I told a client that later became a friend "the past doesn't exist". His response to me was "I think that's the best thing you've said to me" ... and that was when our work together ended: our official work that is. Now, we have a way of communicating with one another that for me is curative and productive, as we look at the world from our own unique and more than often, similar perspectives.  

Unfinished business

While this is true, the past doesn't exist, our memories of what happened back there do. Sometimes they haunt us, and we can get flash flood washed away in waves of regret and remorse. What was left undone, unsaid, unresolved, can feel like unfinished business. And this is precisely what must be addressed. 

It is never too late

To say I'm sorry

To grieve

To offer help

To send a love note

To confess

To ask for forgiveness

To tell someone you admire them

To do the right thing

To try to fix a wrong

To tell the truth

To stop sinning

To call on God and ask Him to heal your heart

To pray for someone to know the living God

It is never too late to learn how to love like Jesus

Shot through the soul

When we have erred or more accurately, when we have sinned, we have breached our integrity. This is akin to holes being shot through the soul. One tiny hole can feel like a minor annoyance, but a conglomeration of them can collapse the structure of a persons moral capabilities. Cumulative sin can feel oppressively heavy, and eventually the burden can crush a spirit. 

Regret and remorse are most excellent signs of a conscience. It is never too late for a sinner to be redeemed, and the glorious thing about love, is it knows no bounds.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)

The other night, God removed one more icky layer of self-protectionism in me that masqueraded as judgment of others. It was the spirit of condemnation. I have always judged myself harshly, condemning myself when I have not perfectly thought, said and done. I have wielded the sword of judgment when I have perceived that others were not noble in their thoughts, words, and actions. This realization was a flash of brilliant glorious light, because I had asked God, once again, to teach me to love like Jesus. To love like Jesus means 

1 love will not always be returned

2 loving others when they are still in their sin

This does not mean that we condone, encourage, or comply with the sins of others, or excuse our own. It means we love them to a better Way, we love them to the Truth, we love them to the point that they see Jesus as the solution to their sin soaked lives. 

Learning to love like God requires some effort on our part. We have to be honest with ourselves, accountable for the things we think, then say, then do. It is a chain reaction sort of responsibility, and it is the only way to not only be free from haunting misdemeanours and horrendously heart breaking choices from the past, but also to carve a path to a future filled with the light of God. 

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5)

Shadow

Lately I have been ruminating on the past. I always do around this time of year. Lot's of painful events from years ago shadow the months of March, April and the beginning of May. While the pain isn't nearly as acute as it once was, I am still working my way through some of the mucky yucky stuff that had me stuck back then. This is the gift of distance from the past, we can look at it without feeling like an emotional cripple, or feeling psychologically handicapped. I have methodology that helps me heal. 

Here are some helpful steps:

• Pick up and examine what disrupts your peace
• Next, label the emotion you are feeling. I experience an unsettled feeling that will distract me, and until I address the niggling issue, I have no rest
• Once you have labelled the emotion, chase down the thoughts that proceeded that unsettled, unease, perhaps queasy feeling you have
• Allow yourself to remember what happened
• Feel all those feelings you had in the circumstances you lived through
• Ask God to help you understand all of it! Not just what and why you felt what you did, but what and why the other person or people did too!
• This will lead you down the road to compassionate relating to others as you seek to understand not only your inner workings, but theirs too
• Ask God to forgive you, and help and heal you both. The power of prayer is truly astounding. It moves momentous monster mountains that have blocked you from the path to peace

But God demonstrates His own love toward us,

In that while we were still sinners, 

Christ died for us 

While we have breath, we have time to learn to love one another in godly, Christlike ways. God is not okay with sin, He wants us to repent and sin no more. He loves us to perfection and equips us along the way to be more like His Son 💖

Glorious, simply glorious