Waves

Last week I took our oldest to apply for his learners permit, by the time we got there at 11 am they said the line was already to long and the computer would no longer allow people to register to get into the line.

Needless to say, I had a disappointed boy.

I pretended like I was too.

Then yesterday he left on a camping/canoeing trip with his best buddies.  So fun to watch them together.
They've been friends since kindergarten, and these are the kind of boys you pray your kiddo will have as friends some day.

This morning is dawned on me that next year is my high school 25 th reunion.

(EEKK)

What do all these things have to do with each other?
Probably not much to most normal minds, but the way mine works it was like a movie being  played out on the big screen.
These rites of passage for my son, got me to remembering some of my own.
Giving thanks for his friends and remembering my Dear Ones who've been by my side since grade school.
A 25th reunion looming, that if I squint hard enough in my minds eyes seems like yesterday we were marching down the aisle making plans and dreaming dreams.

In the midst of all that remembering and being so very grateful, I noticed small waves of 'how could you's' popping up.

Suddenly, even though I sometimes have trouble remembering what I had for dinner the night before, every wrong thing, every hurt I caused when I was younger was suddenly right in front of me.

I felt embarrassed, shamed, humiliated all over again.
In fact I could even feel the warmth of a face flushed with embarrassment spread across cheeks over something that happened over 20 years ago.

I really don't think I'm the only one this happens too.

And in a flash of a moment those small waves become large ones until the undercurrent pulls you down and you feel yourself drowning.

I think shame and humiliation are some of Satan's favorite weapons of choice.
Especially with "good Christian girls".

So, what is a girl to do? Wallow in a past she can't change?
Dwell on regrets and " I should have's"?

No.

She confronts her accuser boldly, out loud if necessary.

She claims the promise of God himself that he alone has cast her sin to the depth of the ocean, spread as far as the East from the West and has chosen to remember it no more.

She looks at where the wounds once were and now sees the scars.
Scars are a good thing-they mean healing has come there.

I will not be pulled under by the waves today.

I will swim in the sea of forgiveness and mercy and cherish the very thought that only a
Grace filled God could use a crazy, mixed up, feeble girl like me.

Blessings and Happy Swimming,