YOUR PAST (PART 1)

“They shall obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
Isaiah 51:11 NKJV

All of us have chapters we wish we could rewrite. Dr. Harold Bloomfield says, “Unresolved emotional pain wreaks havoc on your immune system, cardiac function, hormone levels, and other physical functions. We must make peace with our past because our life may literally depend on it.” To get over your past you must:

(1) Start looking at it differently. Reframe it. Ask, “How did it make me stronger? What do I know now that I didn’t know then?” Don’t focus on what you lost, but on what you gained. (2) Understand the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is feeling bad about what you’ve done – it’s healthy; shame is feeling bad about who you are – it’s toxic and debilitating. All of us have things we’d like to change about ourselves, but when God created us He said, “It was very good” (Ge 1:31), so start seeing yourself as He sees you. (3) Stop punishing yourself with the “if only’s.” After stumbling badly and having God pick him up, David wrote: “Happy is the person whose sins are forgiven…whom the Lord does not consider guilty” (Psalm 32:1-2 NCV). Forgive yourself; God has. Because He sees you through the cross, you are “accepted” (See Eph 1:6). (4) Move from pain to gain. Healing takes time, so expect some anger, fear and sadness. Don’t disown them; they’re part of the process. But don’t adopt them either; know when it’s time to move on. You can’t walk backwards into the future, and the future God has in mind contains more happiness than any past you can remember.