I woke this morning curled up in the warmth of memories like a good book; so grateful the memories are good again.  What a feeling, to look back and to smile.

It’s funny how a memory can change.  It’s proof to me there is a God, and God is beyond time.  God who created light and divided day and night. That God created memories, too.

Have you ever noticed how a simple, small moment can become something defining?  A turning point, a hinge planted in the past that invites us to open a different door into the future?

The hinge moments are rarely the beautiful moments, though.  Mine are most often the product of my selfish, fearful, and controlling worst…moments for which I have long since apologized but still don’t feel absolved.  Maybe the first step toward release from regret is to recognize those moments as prep work for today.

It sounds so cliche.

And it is.  Yet somehow I forget anyway, that I am only a work in progress.  Good thing God is beyond time.  I think I would have lost patience a long time ago.

If our faith life tells us that we are forgiven, perhaps it also hints that to be forgiven is more than a passive acceptance but an active response – a way to look back at the mistakes of the past and see within them a door that opens to a new way of being in the future.

The catch is, the only way to fully step into the best that we can be is to fully embrace the worst that we have been.

And that might be one of the biggest challenges we are ever asked to face.

But oh, the memories!