Pulling up the past

I found this document I wrote back in 2006. It is interesting to see what I was thinking then, maybe you will find it interesting too...


Reflections
As I sit and reflect over my life, a short collection of years compared to most. I feel older than my years, many reasons give way to this thought. The most prominent is perhaps the numerous stupid things and sins I feel I have committed. And yet even now, I am forgiven, those things are erased. I am left with the consequences, haunted by the actions I conceived and carried out. Within me, I cannot forget, as hard as I try to ignore and deny. Nevertheless, I have realized that I can learn from my mistakes, as I’m sure we have all heard from the older and wiser generation. I sit and laugh though, at such a simple sentence with such weight and difficulty. We cannot learn unless we are looking and open to change, often times we are not. We wallow in our doubt, our regrets, that we cannot look ahead to see the good that God can do through the situation.
Letting go, two words that make me cringe, leaving me with so much to do. I struggle with forgiving, moving on, letting go, with things I do not wish to forget. Bitterness can so easily regenerate, leaving less and less room for joy. I know what I must do, and yet I wait for the right time, as though it would be in the distant future rather than now. My pathetic attempts to rationalize my actions or my lack of actions, only complicates the situation.
If I do not forgive others and apologize, why would God do such for me? Why do I believe that passivity will bring about results? Because it is easier, we all know that. That is why there is so much fighting, anger and bitterness brewing, never finding rest. We are too lazy, too careless to make a change, to be the first to forgive.
All these advices I give, yet fail to observe myself. I still have so much to learn. I need to forgive and be forgiven. It is keeping my from being happy, from serving God. From keeping me from knowing who God is.
The blood of my Savior, has cleansed me from all of this, I am a new person. More than anything I desire of the love of God to overflow out of me. I want Christ to be seen in me, my identity securely resting in His truth. And though through this reflection, my hope is renewed in the one who paid the ultimate sacrifice. If He gave up everything for me, surely I should do the same thing for Him.