The past in the now

The past is in the past. And it always stays with you.

I’ve wanted to go back to the past, to who I was. To a place that was home and to people who used to belong in my story.

I’ve held on to my past and I’ve wanted to turn back time.
I’ve thought that, if I could do that, I’d like to take some things from now back to then.
And I’ve thought I’d leave even more things behind in the now.

But then is then, and now is now.
“Then” lies behind me, “now” all around me, and “what will be” stretches out before me like the ocean, covered by a fine mist.

And yet there’s a bit of what is behind me inside of me. Like a shadow that stays in the mirror. The red stain that stays in the white container years after the spaghetti sauce has been washed out.

I’ve often seen my childhood as a burden, something to forget.

And I’ve seen it as the only thing that matters, something to anxiously cling to when all the other things in my life and in the world seemed unsure.

I’ve realized they are just building blocks for who I am, words in my story bringing me home. Something that gives color to my life, like leftover spaghetti sauce.

There was a whole color palette that almost was, like a crossroads with ten roads, each one almost taken.

They would have brought me here just as surely, each with their own color. Like the houses in our street, each house a different color of bricks.

I’ve thought I’d been left on someone else’s road or someone else’s house because of decisions my parents made, decisions I had no say in.

Forgotten by God because I was just a tag-a-long and never the point of the story anyway.

I’ve thought it wasn’t my fault, given up and sat down in despair.

I’ve tried on a different personality like I’d tie on an apron, as if that would make everything easier, like a second skin could change the way my soul works deep inside.

As if I could become who I thought I should be, someone who did belong on this road.

And I’ve seen I was always becoming who I may be, and that will keep on going.

Because the One who holds my hand is the same in every story, and the destination is the same in every journey I could have made.

The Roadmaker and the Homebringer is always the One who made all the pieces that make me. Who was in all the words, places and situations that make my story mine.

He gives me the building blocks but not the outcome.

I’ve thrown a tantrum and demanded for Him to make it just so.

I’ve stomped my feet on the ground and shouted at Him, told Him He owed it to me to tell me how it should go and who I should be.

And He’s said
‘It is good’
and
‘Love one another’

In a very vague way, as if He were a sage in a old book.

He’s reminded me He is the wisest sage in the oldest and newest and only living book.

And then He’s set me loose, and sometimes I stand with arms outstretched and face lifted up to the sun or to the rain, with the wind blowing in my hair and some sensational background music.

Other times I sit down and tell Him it’s a suck-y idea and it’s super lame and stupid and the worst plan ever.

He is love, and He is here, right next to me.

The road has been good, because He is good.

And the road will continue to be good, because He will always be.