Why do we look behind and long for what we had yesterday to come back? We wish we could roll back time and go back to days where life was easier. Have you done that? God knows we all do at times.
“Okay, here’s another box full of VHS tapes,” Jessica said. She’s my teenage friend who comes to help out as she’s earning funds for a mission trip.
“Can you read the label on some of the?” I asked.
As she read the content of those tapes, my mind went back to that time when my two younger sons were in diapers, and I was living a “normal” life. I had eyesight back then. And with not a care in the world, I’d pack all three of them in the back of the car and zip to the store or appointments, or to the park.
What a long road it had been as I transitioned from full sight, living a full life to being blind, completely blind and terrified.
But before my physical darkness turned to emotional darkness, this verse came alive in me: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV).
How beautifully He had brought streams of hope in the wasteland of my blindness. When I cried to understand why, instead of an answer, He gave me peace, sweet peace.
When I grumbled with frustration after burning my finger when cooking, God soothed my pain when my boys asked for seconds.
I also brought back memories of the times when hubby and I would go out to dinner and he didn’t have to lead me by the hand, but what joy when God took me by the hand and led me to the banquet He had prepared for me.
And what a privilege to be able to write these lines and remind you to look at the present and gaze at God’s power that’s making a way in your desert and creating streams of hope in your wasteland.
Father, help me to focus on the good of the present, on the blessing of the moment. On the new things you’re still doing. On the gift of your provision as my eyes read this. In Jesus’ name, amen.
How will you overcome the past to see the new beginning?
Janet Eckles
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