We don’t get a whole lot of snow here in central Alabama, where I live now. So several years ago, when flurries started to fall one Tuesday morning, schools and businesses quickly dismissed so that people could get home before the worst of the snow started to fall after lunch.
The only problem was those initial flurries froze as soon as they hit the pavement. Nobody realized that, of course, until half of Birmingham was getting on the roads at approximately the same time, and within half an hour drivers were trapped in a massive gridlock. I was on the way to pick up my son at his school when I realized that there was no possible way my car could navigate all the hills along my route, so I turned around about a mile away from my work.
Over an hour later, I finally made it back where I started. And since cell towers and phone lines were completely overloaded, I couldn’t get in touch with my husband or our son’s school. Email was the only way we could communicate, and after a couple of hours we realized that all three of us were going to be stuck at our respective spots for the night: me in my classroom, my husband at his office, and our son at his school.
Needless to say, it was a surreal day. In fact, just last week our family was talking about it as we drove from church to lunch, and we revisited some of the stranger details: how I mostly drove on the shoulder of the road so my car wouldn’t slide so much, how our neighbors rescued us the next day, how people abandoned their cars in the middle of the road so they could walk to safety. Alex mentioned that he remembered every detail of what many of us now refer to as “Snowmageddon.”
And after a few seconds of silence, he piped up again from the back seat and said something more profound than he even knew: “It’s weird how we remember the bad stuff almost perfectly, you know?”
Yes. Yes, we do. And that is why I want to be sure to say this to you:
I don’t know what your “bad stuff” has been. I don’t know if it’s something you did or something someone did to you or something that no one could have controlled even if they tried. But I know the mental and emotional agony of rehashing a decision or a conflict or a heartache. And I know how we have a tendency to keep some of the worst moments of our lives filed away in the back of our minds, ready to pull them out of the archives at any moment and press “play” so that we can relive the sadness, shame, or sorrow all over again.
But don’t you forget that the saving grace of Jesus Christ means that we don’t have to live in the wasteland of our “bad stuff.” We don’t have to live as grief’s prisoner. We don’t have to live like the person we used to be.
Because of the blood of Jesus, forgiveness, freedom, and healing are available to us. He’s not disappointed or angry with you. He will never withhold His love from you. There’s no need to relive the past when He is the One who secures your future.
That storm you keep replaying in your head? It’s over. Rest in the loving arms of your heavenly Father, where you are forever safe and sound.
1. Is there anything from your past that you tend to put on replay (and then rethink and reevaluate and maybe even regret)?
2. Has that event affected the way you see yourself? Or the way you think the Lord sees you? Explain.
3. Look at verse 11 of Psalm 103. What kind of love does the Lord have for those who fear Him?
4. Look up the definition for the answer to question #3. Write it down here.
Today’s Prayer