Over the years I’ve lost a lot of things…the biggest being my marriage and the second is probably sleep. But there have been a few other things lost along the way…I’ve lost my mind a time or two, lost my appetite (could stand to do that a bit more), lost my courage, lost an argument, lost my way, lost my heart, lost my hope, lost my keys, my phone, and even my car in the parking lot. 

Today, I lost my temper. 

I hope no one saw it…or heard it. I have teenage daughters…I can probably leave it there. One of them…ooooo golly do I need to pray the Lord will help me with both our attitudes. Her’s first though. Unfortunately, our little mother-daughter moment was in the parking lot at school, at the end of the day, at the end of our first week…when we are all still trying to make good impressions. 

Thankfully, even when things go sideways, we are quick to make up. Quick to apologize and quick to forgive. But the words that can fly around in a car when we are angry could knock you out. Nothing that would make you blush, but emotional nonetheless.

We both realized that her actions and my reactions came from a place other than each other. I was (am) truly exhausted. She was bothered by something someone said and then I was having to say no to something truly fun. I felt terrible and so did she and instead of being kind to one another…we lost our patience. 

Yet another loss. 

The past 15 years of single parenting have involved a lot of loss…not all bad, but sometimes all the things that I’ve had to let go of and all the things that I’ve lost because of my own selfishness and sin, and even the selfishness and sin of others…well, it can become overwhelming. I think that might be why God says to “forget the former things.” (Isaiah 43:18) Letting go and losing those things that can tangle me up and drag me down. I want to be done losing my footing because of past things. 

Not quite sure how to do it. Does it mean looking intently, accepting it, acknowledging it, and handing it over to Jesus? Does it mean I just let go and let God….forget about it, as it were?  

I often, if not always, prefer an easy answer to things. I don’t know that there is one. I’ve had people say just don’t think about it….I get not pondering it, but thoughts tend to pop in unannounced sometimes. Sometimes I’ve been told to focus on other things…ahhh but you forget my spaghetti brain…it’s all in there together, jumbled up. Someone has told me to just not feel that hard thing…if I knew how to not feel, to lose some of my many emotions…oh boy wouldn’t I do it! There have been times over the years when I’d have crawled out of my skin to stop feeling something. I’d definitely lose some emotions if I could. 

Feelings and emotions, memories and regrets, brokenness, bruises, and scars…those are things that have to be dealt with…not stuffed, numbed, or ignored. I think healing begins with a good dose of reality. Stark reality. Tear the bandage off…see it for what it is…clean it, scrub it,  cleanse it…take a deep breath and pour some serious antiseptic on it…then some healing ointment and a fresh bandage. 

Just sticking a bandage on a wound won’t make it better. Neither will only cleaning it a little. Leaving it cleaned but open to the elements won’t aid healing either. There are always steps to healing anything…including a broken heart.

But once that bandage is on there, leave it alone. Don’t peel back the bandage and peek. Don’t poke. Don’t mess with it. I think that is the key to losing the hold the past can sometimes have on us. 

Face it. Acknowledge it. Figure out what you need to do with it and do it.

Then, after facing reality, let go of it. I think this is a lot like forgiveness. Sometimes we need to let go of something repeatedly. I, for one, know all about letting go and picking back up and letting go and picking back up. I’ve built the “pick it back up” muscles to Olympic strength. Letting go takes time and to some degree practice. But each time I put something down it becomes harder to pick it up and easier to put it back down.

I know I’m not supposed to live in the past or with the past defining my present or my future. I know God wants me to learn from the past but also lose it. Lose how it can still hurt. Lose how it can make me afraid. Lose how it can keep me up at night. Lose how it can make me frustrated and sometimes even a little bit angry.

Accept that what has happened, has indeed happened. That what has been done has already been done and can’t be changed. That decisions and choices were made and can’t be undone.

That healing is possible. So is hope. 

The next part of Isaiah 43, “Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I’m making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (v. 19). It doesn’t say that God will take me out of the difficulties, but that He will make a way through them…through dark and confusing wildernesses and terrifying and hopeless wastelands. God is making a way through it. He’s walking me through it.

And He definitely won’t lose me. No matter how often I let go of His hand in my hurt, anger, and silliness. He sees me and hears me and knows just exactly where I am!

Oh, how I love where God brings me when I start writing. I stopped writing in the middle of this because I wasn’t sure where God wanted me to go on this journey of losing things. And when, days later, I sat back down, He brought me to the place I always want to be…the place where I can lose my fear and hopelessness…the place where I am safe and loved…the place beside Him.