Jesus replied, "You don't understand now what I am doing, but someday you will."
- John 13:7 NLT
This week, I’ve spent some time revisiting the events of my past that have molded me into the person I am today. As I reflect on these events, I realized I was stuck in cycles for years before I left situations as a changed person. Whether it was issues of insecurity or rejection or the loss of a relationship, each of these produced improved versions of myself. But, I only got to that result once God showed me how to properly deal with my past.
Whenever the Lord has revealed the ending of a relationship to me or showed me it was time to leave a situation, I've never come to terms with it right away. Usually, He’s had to push me to cut off the connection so He can take me to the next level. As I’ve taken the time to reflect on all of my fallen relationships, I started to realize that the Lord also pays attention to how I walked away. Did I leave by spreading rumors about them because I felt hurt? Was there an effective conversation for closure? Most importantly, did I leave a better person than I was when I entered that relationship?
I’ve been in multiple situations where someone has hurt me, and all I wanted to do is make sure they feel that same hurt. But, that has never made me feel better about the situation, instead, I wasted so much time trying to bring pain unto someone else and the only thing I accomplished was more bitterness. Although God does call us to walk away from relationships, He calls us to do it with honor and grace. We are not called to leave situations in a manner in which is pleasing to our flesh. When we leave with a word from God, we have to seek His direction and guidance when we’re trying to understand how we are supposed to move on to the next level.
Many of you may feel like a lot of the issues from your past are resurfacing in a new form. Our past becomes our present when we haven’t learned how to deal with it properly. If you thought you dealt with that toxic relationship or addiction and you find yourself taking steps back, it may be because God wants you to deal with the root of those issues before He takes you to the next level. After I graduated from high school and started my first year of college, I saw no reason to deal with the issues of my past. I figured a new environment would erase every internal issue as well as the external situations I left behind. However, when I came back home for my first break, I was greeted by every friendship, insecurity, and toxic connection I left behind. I was stuck in that cycle for a little over a year.
We can’t escape our past until we learn how to effectively process and deal with it. I thought I dealt with depression, but God allowed it to arise again in my life because I needed to get to the roots of the issue. He did not allow it to become prominent in my life to keep me stuck there, but instead to receive the gift and testimony that would come from my experience. My battle with depression became a part of my past when the result of it produced the purpose and identity He created for me. But God had to send me back to that place one more time, to come out of it as a better version of myself. I’ve learned that as long as we do not deal with our past the way God wants us to, it will continue to become our present. He didn’t want me to just survive depression, He wanted me to come out with a testimony that could be used to bless other people who were going through the same thing.
We are all human and when we’re upset our emotions can get in the way of us processing our past properly. Sometimes for God to do a new thing in our lives, He has to send us back to the old thing, so we learn how to leave properly. When I decided to walk away from relationships or situations in my life, I couldn’t think about how much I was hurt. Instead, I needed to look at what I learned from those situations and remember what I learned, was going to help me in the next level God was trying to take me to. Once I did that, the Lord closed the door to my past, but I needed to make sure that the door stayed closed unless I was instructed otherwise.
If you feel you've left some stuff in your past unfinished, that’s okay. While all of our obligations have been put on pause, it’s the perfect time to start dealing with the situations in your past that keep coming up in your present. Remember, God doesn’t send us back to our past to keep us there. He sends us back so we return as more than a survivor.
Xoxo,
Girl with Grace
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