So often I find myself looking back at my life and wondering how the heck did I get this far. In learning about grief recovery I have found on my own journey that it doesn’t pay to look back. I have to look forward.

By looking forward I mean I have to keep my eye on the future. The road my life is taking, not the road it has taken. When I keep myself focused on the now and the future, my life goes along pretty well. But when I let myself think back, look back I begin to want to go back. And I cannot.

Some days going back is all I want to do. I think that one day I will wake up and the bad dream of the past three years will be over and life will be as it was. I sit and cry out to God and ask “please can I just have a do over”? I just want my life back. The one where I knew how to be a mom, I knew how to be a nurse, I knew how to make decisions, I knew how to breathe – I knew how to live.

Now I struggle with knowing what to do, or what to say or how to live. Some days I struggle with finding the strength to breathe. But then I remember that God has a plan for me. That plan is unfolding before my eyes. I have to be in the present to realize it. Or it will pass me by and I’ll never see it. Or at least to the degree that God wants me to.

Being present means not looking back longingly at a life once lived. That doesn’t mean I can’t look back and remember the good times. It just means that keeping my eye on the future is how I am going to fulfill the plan God has for me. A plan that I know involves bringing some type of meaning to the huge loss in my life. The emptiness that resides in my heart – may one day be filled again.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

I believe this scripture is one of many that have given me hope throughout these past three years. I have relied so often on my bible and the Word – but mostly on my quiet time with God when I tell Him how grateful I am that I have come this far. And that I am grateful for how far I have yet to go.

until next time

m