“Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can TRANSFORM this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.”
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Why Get Over It?
The past. Do those two words sound good or horrible to you? Your past might be something you miss, or it might haunt you. It might be a distant memory or a recurring nightmare. But whatever happened yesterday, the day before, or the year before, the past is part of your story. It’s the path your life has taken to get you to where you are today and to make you who you are now. But no matter who you are, you probably have a few things in your past that you wish weren’t there. Or you might have a ton. Whatever the case, the most important thing you need to know about your past mistakes, heartaches, pains, abuse, suffering, and misery is how to get over it.
Over It is our attempt to help you do that. We know that the things that have happened to you have impacted you. We know that they have made you who you are and that sometimes you don’t like that fact and you want a change. We also know that the past can remain the present if you don’t let go of it and get over it today (or maybe next week). And we know that guilt, resentment, bitterness, self-hatred, and fear can become a part of your normal, everyday life if you have a past that you haven’t gotten over.
The average person has a lot of things that need getting over—things like guilt and pain from heartache, abuse, failure, weakness, bad memories, and loss. A sense that you can’t forgive whoever or whatever it was that hurt you, even if it was yourself, can haunt you every day of your life that you fail to get over the past and to get on with today. And depending on what happened, the past can be more present than the present. Research has revealed that the cycle of grief can take significantly more time to get through when the loss is great. It takes you longer to get over the breakup of a relationship of two years than a relationship of two weeks, right? Well, not always. We’ve seen people who went out on one date with a person suffer from heartache for months after never hearing from them again. So no matter what the world says your degree of suffering should be, we know that it can be much worse depending on your level of grief and your way of thinking about the bad things that have happened to you.
Take heart, because in this world you will have trouble, and your trouble is no worse than all the trouble everyone else in this world is having, and it is nothing that you can’t handle. That’s biblical, so we know it’s true. (Wanna check? Read John 16:33.) In this world you are gonna have trouble, and that’s why we wrote Over It—because there is no one on earth who doesn’t have something they need to get over. At the fall of man we were all given an equal portion of original sin. That means we’re all capable of the same messed-up things, so welcome to the club. There aren’t any of us without any problems whatsoever; there just aren’t. So if you are human and you are breathing, then guess what? You’re in for it.
What’s Your Problem?
Is there anything in your life you can’t stop thinking about? Anything anyone has said or done, any mistake you have made, any unkind word, any abuse, any backstabbing or frontstabbing? Is there anything causing you to feel embarrassment, shame, bitterness, anger, fear, worry, depression, or guilt? Then you have something you need to get over. You might hear something insignificant about your hair or your clothes and spend the rest of the day stewing over it, dissecting it, and wondering what in the world that person meant. Or you might find out someone told someone else something about you that was totally false—not a huge deal, but a total lie—and you might spend the next week unable to get over thinking about it. If there is something, anything, no matter how big or how small, that draws you into sin by making you doubt, fear, worry, or do anything else that God commands you not to do, then it’s time to get over it.
Getting over it is not only good for you; it’s right for you. That’s because anything that you can’t get over becomes an idol. Look at it like this: one definition of idolatry is “an immoderate attachment or devotion to something.” “But I don’t have an idol!” you protest. Certainly not, not one made out of gold or wood or anything. But you do have an obsession—something you can’t get over, something you think about all the time, something that controls you and makes you sick, tired, stressed, worried, and fearful. And have you ever considered what an obsession is? Check out Webster’s definition of the word: “a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling.” Sound familiar?
Just for kicks, let’s take a look at those two definitions side by side. Sure, why not? It might help.
idolatry: an immoderate attachment or devotion to something
obsession: a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling
In other words, in both cases you have an immoderate or persistent attachment or preoccupation with something other than God. Do you need to get over that? If you say you believe in God and his promises according to his words written in the Bible, then yes, you need to get over it! In fact, we could say, based on this knowledge, that whatever you can’t get over is bringing you down spiritually. It’s sapping your strength and getting you off track. It’s keeping you from the promises of God. It’s keeping you down, slowing you down, and messing you up. You know it, you feel it, and you want it gone. So it’s no wonder you’ve picked up this book.
We can relate. We’ve had so many things in our lives that have needed getting over. Some have been quick to go, but others have taken us a lifetime so far. So we aren’t calling you out here and putting a scarlet letter on your chest or anything. We’re saying we’ve been there, done that. We know that of which we speak, and it ain’t good! And what kind of people would we be if we knew the cure for cancer but didn’t share it with the rest of the world?
That’s really what we have here—a cancer of the soul, a toxic growth that threatens your spiritual and emotional life. For people who don’t have the cure, this might be a death sentence, or at very least require a long, drawn-out series of experimental drugs and treatments, but you are in luck because we have a cure that’s not only effective but swift. It will remove this abnormal growth on your soul faster than any laser or radiation treatment ever could. And it’s all based on love.
All this talk about cancer might sound ridiculous, but just think about it a minute. That thing you have failed to get over has attached itself to you. And what has that attachment gotten you? People who can’t get over the things they should get over deal with just as many symptoms as the cancer patient, if not more. The American Cancer Society lists on its website some general signs and symptoms of cancer. None of these give a surefire diagnosis of cancer, but they may be the result of having cancer. Keep in mind that a symptom is a sign that something is wrong inside you. You might be the only one who knows it’s there, but when you notice a symptom, it’s smart to attempt to figure out what it might mean. And knowing what some of the symptoms of a thing are can help you identify if you really do have a problem.
So to keep with the analogy of idolatry being like a cancer, let’s take a look at the symptoms that may be the result of not being able to get over something in your life. Do any of these apply to you?
| insomnia | fatigue | anxiety |
| envy | angry outbursts | loneliness |
| fear | worry | hate |
| bitterness | fights | jealousy |
| shame | foggy thinking | inability to concentrate |
| depression | weakness | nervous breakdowns |
| cutting | eating disorders | addiction |
If you suffer from any of these, there might be something in you that is currently out of whack. And we can probably safely say that you’d like it to be gone. And so would we. Getting over things isn’t a surefire way to heal yourself of all that ails you, but not getting over something is a surefire way to be “ailed.” So if you want to get to the bottom of your soul issues and find out what obsesses you and how to be healed of it, then let the surgery begin!
Knowledge Heals
You can get over a lot of the things in your life with just a little chunk of knowledge. A lot of the things that haunt you and mess with your life are based on lies—not lies that you purposefully tell yourself but lies that you think are the truth. So in an effort to help you get over it, we suggest that shining some light on your lies will make a humongous difference. After all, what good is basing your life on a lie? How can you expect to get anywhere when you think that driving in the right-hand lane is wrong and you should be driving in the left-hand lane? (Caution: Residents of the UK, the Bahamas, and other nations with left-lane driving, reverse this analogy!) If what you believe to be true is really wrong, then it’s no wonder your life is full of stress and angst. Lies never make for a productive or growing life. They keep you stuck where you are and don’t help you move toward anything of value. So the first step in getting over it is getting head and heart knowledge.
The biggest piece of head knowledge that will help you is the knowledge that the Bible is totally, one hundred percent true. If we can convince you of that statement, then we can help you to get over literally anything. And the biggest heart knowledge you can gain from the Bible is that nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus—not angels or demons, not the present or the future, not any power, not death or life or anything else in all creation (look at Rom. 8:38–39). Nothing can separate you from the most amazing love in the entire universe. That means that nothing, nothing, nothing can get between you and what that power has to offer: peace, hope, rest, love, comfort, knowledge, and truth. There’s nothing in this world that you can’t get over and nothing that can separate you from what is yours, the comfort and love of God. For your guilt, pain, or weakness, we’re offering you knowledge. And in every case, with that knowledge of God’s Word, you can get over it all!
Whatever it is that keeps you in bondage, that keeps you stuck in the past, repeating the same scene over and over again in your mind, it can be taken away. It’s taken away the same way that sin is taken away: by giving it to Jesus. His blood redeems not only your sin but also your pain, your suffering, and your past.
The World’s Biggest Failure
Have you ever considered the fact that at the point when the disciples saw Jesus Christ crucified, his life was a complete failure in everyone’s mind but God’s? All that he’d said and all that he’d done seemed to be a complete waste, even a lie. His followers’ hearts were broken. Tears were shed. Disciples walked away dejected. How could this man who had shown such promise and who did so many miracles now be dying a horrible and seemingly useless death? To the world looking on, the cross was a hideous end. But after three days of grieving they saw differently, and suddenly God’s plan became clear. Their hearts saw the truth and their lives changed. They looked beyond the circumstance that had paralyzed them and saw behind it into God’s plan. Anytime you can catch a glimpse of God’s plan, you are set free, and so were the disciples—set free to believe and to trust.
In this life you are bound to have problems. You are bound to want what you can never have. You are going to get hurt, to fall down, to cry, to rage. You are going to have moments of loneliness and despair. You are going to feel rejected and disdained. And if you see only what is in front of you, then you, like the disciples, might lose faith. You might wonder where God went. You might question his existence or his love. But if you can see beyond the surface, if you can find the truth in the moment, then you can rise above and not only survive it but flourish in it.
“God is love” (1 John 4:8 NIV). In him there is nothing bad, nothing evil, nothing worthless or vile. He is everything you’ve ever wanted and anything you’ve ever needed. To those who know God and have made him Lord of their lives, there is always hope. And that is because no matter how bad things get, they always know there is something far greater going on behind the scenes. The true believer is sure that God is who he says he is and because of that he can be trusted with anything—even the dark, ugly, scary things.
That all adds up to one important fact: there is nothing on this earth that you cannot get over. But maybe that idea doesn’t sit well with you. Maybe you like holding on to the past. Maybe it comforts you and keeps you warm. Maybe it defines you. Maybe being free from it seems unfathomable. That’s understandable. Like we said at the beginning of this, your past in many ways defines you. It’s the outline of the paths you have taken, the roads you have walked, and good or bad, it has made you who you are. And so forgetting that past, or getting over it, might seem like a betrayal of who you are. Okay, we get that. It makes sense, and we can relate on some level as well. We too have defined ourselves by our past.
“The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will be true in your history and in mine.”
— Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
For Hayley it’s been about who she is as a girl. Through high school and college and into her working years, she was plagued by mean girls. These girls despised her and did all they could to make her life miserable. Girls talked about her, spread rumors about her, hung nooses in her locker, spit on her car every day of the week, TP’d her house, gave her undeservedly bad reviews at work, excluded her from parties, and kept her an outsider. Because of them Hayley decided that girls were no good and unessential for life, and she moved on to boys. Men made more sense to her. They weren’t so emotional, catty, or vindictive. They liked her for who she was and weren’t jealous or petty around her. So her life became defined by something she couldn’t get over: mean girls. And for a bunch of years she spent her life without any feminine relationships at all (except some friendships with girly guys). Sure, the guys were great, but there is something about a girl that only another girl can ever truly understand. And for many years Hayley missed out on that.
But the story didn’t end there. When Hayley applied the knowledge of God’s Word to her feelings on the girls in her life, she discovered some lies she had been believing; namely, that God wasn’t anywhere in the equation and that nothing good could come from it. She had been missing out on the truth that God has a lot to say about enemies and how he wants his children to deal with them. She learned that the pain in her life had a grand purpose she had been missing all those years. Once she discovered that, she was suddenly able to get over it. And at that point her life took a dramatic change. The stress, worry, and fear associated with people of the same sex went away. She no longer sat waiting for their next attack or expecting them to reject her. Instead, she proceeded as God had intended—in love, in hope, and in faith that he would work it all together for good, no matter how ugly things got. And so when she wrote the book Mean Girls, out of her pain and suffering came help for hundreds of thousands of young women the world over who were dealing with the same kinds of issues and couldn’t get over it.
For Michael, his lifelong obsession was to get married young and have kids before he got old. That was because his parents had him late in life and weren’t like all his friends’ parents. He couldn’t play sports or wrestle around with his dad or have an active life with his parents. So Michael was determined to find love early in his life so that his kids wouldn’t have to have the same disappointments. He just couldn’t get over his “loss” of having older parents. So he got married early in his twenties, without making a serious commitment to his faith or seeking a spouse who sought after God above all else. Less than three years later, that marriage was over. That just led him further into a desperate spiral of “love first, God second”—an obsession that he finally surrendered to God a year before meeting Hayley. And since then he’s co-written a number of relationship books with Hayley that have helped other people avoid (or heal from) making the mistakes he made.
All this to say, we’ve done our fair share of obsessing over the past and the sin of others. We’ve reacted both the way the world said we should and the way God calls us to, and we’ve found out that God’s way works! In fact, it runs circles around the world’s ways. So before you shut this book, never to return to it again, give us a chance to shed a little light on the lies you’ve been believing and give you a little hope and healing for the pain and suffering you’ve been living in at your own hands. You can get Over It, we promise!
“To dwell on the past simply causes failure in the present. While you are sitting down and bemoaning the past and regretting all the things you have not done, you are crippling yourself and preventing yourself from working in the present. Is that Christianity? Of course it is NOT.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression