I have a new found obsession. I now love, love, love twitter. I had always thought of twitter as some ridiculous idea. My knowledge of it was thinking that everyone was tweeting about minor details in their own lives like if they were going to starbucks, or wal-mart, or what they ate for dinner. I found myself totally uninterested in this. However, my brother informed me one evening that he had started following our pastor on twitter. He did this because our pastor had recently become no longer the pastor at Second Baptist. My family and I were greatly saddened by the events and my brother felt like he could keep up with the pastor by following him. When I heard of this idea I immediately got on twitter. I began following the pastor, his wife, and his daughter. As I became followers of them I could see people they were following. Our pastor was following some other preachers. I could look at some of what they were posting and it was much better than just casual information like what was for dinner. Instead, they would post little thoughts about deeper things. It was like little mini Bible studies posted all throughout the day. They gave me things to think about, and things to apply to my life. I now follow countless numbers of people. There are certainly occasional tweets about places they are going, or things they are doing, which I don't mind, but my favorite things are the snippets I read that apply directly to my life.
I began following Women of Faith on twitter. Everyday they post a link to a daily devotion. Today as I clicked on the link I had an epiphany. The Lord totally opened up my eyes to a detail! The devotion was about Peter, the disciple who denied knowing Jesus when He was on the cross, thus making him one of my favorite disciples; not because of his denial, of course, but because even though he had faults and he failed the Lord, he was forgiven. I feel so relieved of guilt when I myself partake in or receive the Lord's forgiveness. But getting back to the devotion now, it was written by Sheila Walsh today and I want to share them on here. She said, "Have you messed up? Perhaps you are ashamed to even face what you have done. It may have been something that caused harm not just to you but to others. If so, have the faith to remember that with God all things can be made new. Your past is just that. But your future in Him is limitless. All God looks for is a desire to begin moving in the right direction, and he will be there to embrace you." I LOVED IT! It was nothing I had not known or heard before or even used when talking to others. Today though it hit me differently. Here are the lines that I got so hung up on, Your past is just that. But your future in Him is limitless." Did you read that the way I did? Your past is just that...it's the past! Yahoo! I got it! I mean I do have a past but I always consider my past as long ago and far away, just not long enough ago and far enough away for me to forget it. But according to scripture, it actually IS! My bad decisions in my past have been forgiven and He remembers them no more, they are as far as the East is from the West. I can't really fathom all that that entails but I know it means He doesn't remember them, only I choose to do that and to keep going back to them and dredging them up so that I can feel guilty and bad and ashamed. Not anymore! I'm all done with that! Past is past and my future is limitless.
Another epiphany I had concerning the devotion, due to recent events in my life I am sure, was that "your past" does not have to mean only big, bad, ugly mistakes I have made. It can also mean just life in general that you have already gone through. It doesn't even have to mean mistakes, it can be as simple as yesterday because yesterday is in the past. And the past is O.V.E.R.! Hello! What great news! I can get pretty bogged down in my past. For instance, I in the past have not been successful in dieting, faithful in exercise, nor have I found myself to be very disciplined, etc. But all of those things are in the past. My future, according to the devotion, is absolutely limitless. Anything I want to change I can change. I know me and I can get a bit bogged down in my status of being single. I get all sad sometimes not really because I am single, but more about the fact that there is no guy who is "after me". I proudly wear the "poor rejected me" outfit and solicit others sympathy. Every time I think there might be a prospect of a guy I begin my negative thinking and mantra of, "I would really like things to finally work out with a guy, but I'm not getting my hopes up because as we can all see, up to this point it hasn't." My family and friends listen to me drone on and on about this. I don't mean to complain and whine about it but I do because there is significant hurt inside. But all the rejection I have chosen to hold on to, because that's all there is to hold on to once the guy has exited my life like his hair was on fire, is no longer going to be my constant companion! It is now also in the past. Was I rejected? Yes, sometimes, sometimes it just didn't work out for either of us. Did it hurt? Yep! But that rejection is in the past. I am going to start over, right now, right this very minute! I am embracing a fresh start. I will not let my past behavior dictate today's behavior! I have a new life today! I will not compare any of my yesterday's to today. Today is a new day. Today is a new right now. It is a FABULOUS now and a great time to start my new FABULOUS life! Woo Hoo!
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