Facing the Past

"You'll never know if you're on the right course for your life until you see the course that has brought you to where you are today."
-Jessica Brockmole, Letters From Skye

"I felt anchored to a place so dark and full of despair that it seemed nothing would ever change...[but] what is lost can often be found, restored, replaced, or recovered...Today I am grateful and appreciative of all that has happened in my life, including my childhood and my mother's drinking. They brought me to where I am today, and I like being here."
-Hope For Today (Alanon book), Jan. 5 Devotion

I've been reading a novel for the past few days called Letters from Skye. It is a romance novel about a young man who falls in love with a woman from Skye in the early 1910s. It just turns out that the woman is married to a man who is away at war. There is turmoil but also tremendous beauty in the story. Enough turmoil for a Jerry Springer show.

The romance story is juxtaposed to another story, taking pace in 1940, of the woman's daughter trying to find out about her past. Trying to find out about her father and where she came from. That is where the quote above comes in.

Sometimes we want to run away from our past. Sometimes we want to know all we can about our past. Because our past is a big part of who we have become. It does not define us but it is a part of us. Sometimes we need to know about the past in order to move forward.

Every so often, we hear about adopted children trying to find their birth parents. It is that great yearning to find out where we came from that helps us know who we are. Knowing about our past gives us closure on what could have been... no matter the turmoil.

I have often wondered about my past... wondering what I would be like if things had been different; if I hadn't been abused, neglected, or homeless, who would I be? Where would I be? Would I struggle with severe mental illnesses?

It is exactly in those questions that I learn that I am right where God wants me to be. Nothing more, nothing less. He has placed those challenges in my life to create a strength in me that I never knew I would ever have. He has given me a determination that has continually carried me through the challenges that have come my way. And for that, I am eternally thankful to God...