Friday, May 22, 2009
Choosing to remember
Can you remember the past and still start over with a clean slate? I am trying to gain a new perspective on some things in my life and I am having a problem with the fact that I still remember the history of how I got to where I am at. For example, I have friends who in the past haven't always followed through on what they said they would do. So now as I try to start with a new perspective and trust that they will follow through when they say they will do something, I struggle with believing that based on my past experiences with them. (By the way, just in case there are any paranoid friends of mine reading this, I have no particular person in mind with this example. Just trying to explain my thoughts with an example. Also no animals were hurt in the testing of this blog.) I don't want to forget the past, but I don't want it to keep me from growing either. How do you learn to trust again? I know you can't pretend that the past didn't happen. That isn't healthy, but neither is not being able to move forward in spite of the past. I think for me it means that I remember the past but still intentionally choose to trust. Sometimes that is easier for me than at other times. I want to move forward without the baggage, but also want to learn from having carried that baggage. What do you think? How do you move between these two choices?
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Sometimes everything is an act of the will. Or like you said, an intentional choice. I dont mean that like John Wayne, but I mean that sometimes everything that you know and have experienced conflicts hard with everything that you know you're supposed to do. Forgive, Love, no matter what, can be a challenge. And for some of us its a process out of the wilderness, so to speak. This is the story of my life.
You said trust, and that is, I think, the only way out. Being a believer doesn't make us naive, and so we can't help but to learn. And neither are we bullet proof. We experience the same hurts and like everyone else, we recall painful moments. We flinch just like other people do. But sometimes all I have is the command to forgive, or to Love, and then my experiences of God, and his own Love, and forgiveness, and nothing else. Sometimes my step back into trusting people begins by re-trusting God without strings.
My prayer might sound like this:
I don't trust them, God, but I trust you. Do with this what you want.
The release of Baggage and healing begin here I think. Everything else is practical stuff, like restoring the friendship, and making yourself available, and then ongoing faithfulness over time that restore long term trust, and as always, some magic that comes from God.
This is the hardest thing that people do, because its not natural, its supernatural. But then again, its how we know we're really alive. Its like swimming up stream. And it's kind of like GK Chesterton once said, "only a living thing can swim against the stream".
Thats me.
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