It amazes me that I have yet to really write a blog about my love of the ocean. I mean, seriously, It's at least my number two of favorite pastimes, how is it that it has not made it in? So, the other day I had some free time to spare. It happened to be on my twenty first birthday, which for some reason, birthdays always kind of seem to sadden me. It's not that I hate getting older, its just well, I don't really know what it is. Anyway I headed to the beach just to clear my head and think. Nothing does that better than the watching the waves roll in. I thought about everything that had happened in this past couple of weeks. I thought about how much I've changed since even last semester. And it was kind of exciting to see what God had been doing. And it was kind of funny to reminisce on the absolute chaos that I have called my life.
But then the time came, when I sort of wished nothing had changed. I wished I could go back to last semester. I looked at the struggles that have come about since this semester and I wished like anything they would all just disappear. But then it hit me. It's funny how when we think about our pasts we only remember the "good ol' days" It's easy to think the past was better than today. For some reason we seem to have selective memories. Because the fact is, last year I still had issues. Yes maybe the faces of some have changed, but they were still there. Last year I was sitting on the beach on my 20th birthday reminiscing about "the good ol' days."
You could make the case that its good to forget the bad. But there's also an extreme concern with this too. When we look at the past through rose-colored glasses we run the risk of being ungrateful for what we have right now. We short change the memories of how God has worked in our lives-often most obviously through our struggles.
As a seagull flew overhead I all of a sudden had the epiphany that God doesn't waste ANY of our experiences. Both the good and the bad benefit us. And it's kind of weird to think of, but this semester has honestly been the toughest semester of my life. Family stress, school stress, friend stress, future stress, finding a place to live and trying to feel settled stress, singleness stress. You name it, it's piled on. But yet at the same time, I have never more blatantly seen God work. It's odd amongst the struggles to think one day, maybe even next year, I will sitting on the beach on my birthday and think "Yeah, those were the good ol days." Not to say that life's going to get worse, but just to be able to see how it has shaped me into the person I am and how I can use those difficulties to help others. And that's what I need to start looking forward to. Enough reminiscing on a past that can't be changed. Yes, maybe those were the good times, but they aren't my life anymore. And if I spend my time in a constant state of memories and daydreams I'm going to miss the good things that are happening now. Because the fact is, I'm still living. I've not stopped. It's like on one my favorite singers Jon Foreman says, ""If we spend our time obsessing about the future or regretting the past, then we will never live. Tomorrow will always be tomorrow and yesterday cannot be changed."
Isaiah 43:18-19, "'Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.'"
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