Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 says there is a time for everything.

This past Thanksgiving, while caring for my mother, I wrote the post, “Stacking Stones” in which I shared the importance of documenting God’s goodness, so we can look back and remember He loves us, provides for us, makes a way for us, carries us and delivers us.

Recently, on a particularly difficult day, while clearly wallowing in the mullygrubs as my daddy called it, my husband lovingly reminded me that what we focus on, will come to pass. This threw me back to when I was fifteen and learning to drive. I remember driving my daddy’s truck, coming to a bend in the road, and him telling me to focus on the end of the bend, not the beginning; for where we focus on our eyes, is where we go! In order to not hit the divider in the middle of the road, I needed to focus on where I wanted to be, not where I was currently!

Fast forward twenty-six years and I’m seeing the validity of the driving lesson and how it directly applies to my life now. According to Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything and looking back is part of that, as we reflect on the goodness of God. However, when looking back takes us to a place where we linger in pain, it’s not healthy, nor what God designed for us when He ordered us to stack stones of remembrance!

Philippians 3:13-14 says:
Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

While it is important to stack stones of remembrance for future reflection, it is unhealthy to look back and focus on our pain, failures or disappointments. For us to wallow in the mullygrubs, only keeps us in a place of despair, and paralyzed in pain, unable to productively walk in the calling God’s placed on our lives.

It’s okay to honestly reflect on the past pain, but to linger there is the problem. God calls us to forget what lies behind, to press on, reaching forward to what lies ahead, and we can’t do this if we wallow!

So, while every day brings a tinge of pain, as I learn to live my life without both my parents, I’m slowly learning the art of beholding and becoming:

Beholding what has happened in my life; the losses and pain,
Surrendering the pain to God, and trusting Him to help me in…
Becoming the woman He’s designed me to be, through it all.

Praying that as you work through past pain and disappointment, that you find healing in Jesus, as you surrender it all to Him and become the person He’s called you to be. May you allow Jesus to use your past to fulfill the calling He’s placed on your life, whether it be as spouse, parent, friend or professional.