All things new

What do you do when your heart breaks into pieces? How do you keep walking forward when everything in your heart wants to run back?

These are the days I find myself wanting to pick up the pieces of an old life, a life that seemed more comfortable or easy. I find myself staring at the past and trying to figure out how these pieces fit back together. A memory here, a song there, a location or church or friend and yet it's not the same. I can live in the past, wishing for a memory that defined a younger me or a happier me or a less stressed me. I can look to the future and envision an escape, a hope that if something changes that the world will be right again.

What I've realized is that in our hurts life isn't meant to be put back together in a neat package. The past is over for a reason; the Lord tells Lot's wife not to look back and wish for a purpose. "16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” Genesis 19:16-17 Luke recounts in saying, "31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife!33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it." Luke 17:31-33

I've found the Lord to say, "Put down the pieces, they don't fit together anymore. Give the pieces to me, I'm going to make something new." Letting go is never easy, each and every time it's with tears that I once again hand my plans, my past, my future, back to the Lord. As I write this I sit with tears streaming down my face as I again am faced with hurt and am asked to let go and trust my Father.

Tonight I'm praying for the promise of Isaiah to be true in my life. "Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare;before they spring forth I tell you of them." Isaiah 49:2 and, "Behold, I am doing a new thing;now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43:19

I've found that freedom lies neither in past nor future in our lives. Freedom is found in a different story line completely. The pieces of what once were or might someday be, "me", can only make sense in a larger puzzle. Some of me might have to break to fit into a new picture but I know that it will be far more beautiful than any I've made before.

May there be ways in the wilderness of your life and rivers in the desert of your heart. It's only in letting go that we find freedom in His story.