Forget the former things

"Forget the former things; do not dwell in the past.  See, I am doing a new thing! Now is springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."  Isaiah 43:18-19

This weekend has been blessed.  Blessed, folks.  With good and beautiful things.  Smiles and hugs and laughter and road trips and dancing and playing in creeks and worship that makes you touch the very ground of heaven and friendships and family and naps while afternoon thunderstorms soak the ground.  It has been filled with goodness, the kind of moments you feel like you may not be able to take another breath because your chest is full of joy because of moments that take your breath away.  But it didn't start out that way.

Friday afternoon driving home brought me into the fullness of flashbacks and fear that I wasn't ever going to come through this.  That my resolve was only ever going to be just a minute from evaporated.  I was terrified that I won't ever again feel analytical and distant in stress.  And my therapist assured me that I will never be the same.  That I will never be able to analyze without emotion. (Full disclosure now; when I first read his assurance that I would never be the same again, I almost threw my phone.  But he called me and we sorted through the torrent in my heart, and I was calmed with my phone left intact.)  He assured me that God is making me into more.  Transforming me into a new creation.  Analytical and tender-hearted side by side.   

And as I sat in my terror and memories, I was unable to see the way made for me into the new things that God is doing in my heart.  But in trust, I held Kit's hand, and walked forward into the events we had planned for this weekend.  And our first plan involved playing with our family in Fishtail, in the creek.  A stream filled with laughing children and a legacy of joy in Kit's family.  It was a stream in the wasteland of my heart that night.  And I by that stream I was again able to perceive the new thing that God is doing in our lives. 

With a peaceful resolve we drove home, and awoken on Saturday morning to begin another day that was filled with goodness.  We headed over to our dear friends ranch party.  We love this family so completely, and we have marveled at their grace these last 5 years since Rob's diagnosis of brain cancer and their son's diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes.  Rob and Stacy are beautiful, and they are walking hard roads.  We want to be more like them, making much of moments in life that are given to us.  We danced and laughed and enjoyed the fellowship of their friends and family.  And then we drove home in the dark.  Only the second time since our accident, we were on the road for 3 hours in the dark, and fear didn't even start to creep in.  Just conversation that flowed easily as we reminisced about all we had seen and heard and done that precious evening.  We didn't stay home, haunted by memories of what happened, we went along the way God had given us in that day for joy.

As we have begun to rebuild our lives, we are honestly assessing the tools and patterns we have used in our life up until March 31.  Many of our life skills have been good and have served us well.  But there are some that we see that have limited God's redemptive power in our lives.  And while they must go, they are comfortable, and in and of themselves not bad.  But they are not the best.  They are not what God wants for us.  So we find something else that we have to forget.  Because it isn't always the former terrors that you need to forget, sometimes it's the habits and skills you have used that are keeping you from all the best God has for you.  

On that note, and by means of open confession, one of my favorite old skills is the art of displacement.  If an emotion ever threatened my resolve, I shoved it into an emotional closet, and often just locked the door and walked away.  Years of practice made that very easy.  I could keep the door shut by exercising, or work, or being judgmental, or singing, or cleaning my house, or a long list of other distractionary tools.   It's pretty safe to say, that every closet in my heart with shut and locked doors rattled off it's hinges as we violently collided that night.  Emerging physically broken I couldn't even begin to use most of my old skills, and yet had a leviathan of threatening emotions to sort through.  My nightmares surrounding that night and not the only "former things" I have had to forget.  

As we allow our hearts to be reshaped, we are clinging to the promise in these verses from Isaiah.  We are letting go of our right to cling to the past, to dwell on it, and we are instead taking hold of the new thing that God is doing in us.  Even our old "coping mechanisms" are laid out, not to be dwelt on.   As we walk through this desert, we are going to continue to walk along the way He has laid out for us.  We are allowing joy in from the streams He is leading us by.  Every step of this process has been a choice.  But with that choice to forget the former things, and not dwell on the past we have been given a promise, and God always keeps his promises.   

This weekend had joy waiting for us.  Life springing up to fill us to overflowing.  And it was good.