CRICK IN THE NECK
Holding onto the door knob to the front door of the duplex, I looked back inside to say goodbye to the memories that flooded into my heart and mind. Some good, some bad. I even said, out loud, goodbye my Larry. This was the last place that he and I had been together, before he passed away into a different door into the eternal. We had been married 36 years. I got married right after high school. We grew up together through the years. We had created three amazing children, which led to eight grandkids and one great. We went through some hard times and many happy times. All intertwined into each other to become the people we had been and became. As I went out, I closed the door to that past. The unknown future stretched before me.
As I leave on the airplane, after being with my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids in Virginia, I look one more time at my babies and then head for the door of the airport with tears pouring down my face. But once I go into that door, I realize that I have to leave them behind me. I always take so many pictures and send them a little photo album of our many adventures, so that sad memory of leaving them, turns into happiness of all the things we had done.
Have you gone thru any doors and looked back and wished you could go back and do things differently? Have you blamed yourself for things that have happened in the past so much that you have gotten stuck in that door, with a crick in your neck, and cannot go forward? I have a friend who blames herself for things that happened twenty or more years ago and she cannot put that behind her. She is stuck in that doorway with a crick in her neck, not able to live today or look forward into what she could have become. She has lost so many opportunities to serve the Lord with her precious humility.
We do have to look back at some happenings so that we can learn from them. Sometimes they are the seeds from the past that will grow into what our future holds for us. When I look at old pictures, sometimes I wish I could go back and be in that moment of time, when things were simpler, when my Papa Judge was alive and I was a child, sitting on his knee and all the fun we had together. God put our faces on our bodies to face forward, not backward. What happens when you are walking and turn your head around? You run into or fall into something. That crick in the neck, only leads to hurt and pain. God has designed us to look towards the future-live in the present and put the past behind us.
I have had to turn around and relive some of the painfulness of my past to be able to help others who might be going through a similar situation. 2 Corinthians 1:1-4 reads “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our tribulation, that we might be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” This verse, has given me the courage to open up about the rough patches in my past. The times that I felt all alone-when I did not know what to do-when I realized what I had perceived my future would be like, was not going to happen. Times I felt bitterness and how God helped me through that. Times when I fell to the floor in tears and anguish. When I think back to those times, my heart still grieves and a few tears are shed, but when I am able to share with others who are feeling the same, my heart has started to heal. I have been able to turn my head around from looking backward, to looking forward and able to tackle whatever lies ahead. Walking through that door instead of looking back and leaving the past behind and reaching for a brighter future, is what God wants for our lives.
In Genesis 19, God gives us the example of Lot and his family. He lived in Sodom. (You are already knowing where I am going with this.) This city and Gomorrah were very evil. Lot, his wife and his two daughters, were the only people who were not wicked. Two angels had appeared to Lot and told him to get out of this evil city with his family. His two daughter’s husbands, did not take Lot seriously and ended up staying in this evil city. Verses 15-17 reads, “When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, ‘Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.’ And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and hands of his two daughters the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city, So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, ‘Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.” God was going to destroy these cities with fire and brimstone. Can you imagine what that might look like if you were in the mountains looking down at the brimstone and fire that God sent? These verses tell us that Lot “lingered.” Lot had mixed feelings, he paused. The angels had to literally grab his hand, his wife’s hand and the hands of his daughters to get them out of this evil city. Because of God’s mercy, they were saved.
But then, we come to verse 26, “But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Oops, she looked back and she became a mineral heap! I have often wondered why she became a pillar of salt. Why not a pile of sugar or flour. Why salt? I do not have any answer to that, other than the point is not what mineral she turned into, but the fact that she had disobeyed and turned back. She wanted to see and remember where she had been. This example to me is that we are not to linger in that doorway that leads from the past into the future. We may not understand the reasons of why we are to obey. But we realize that if we do obey; even when we don’t understand-even when we feel the hurt and pain-even when we feel all alone-even when everyone else around us is of the world, that God will be with us and take care of us.
So, what is the purpose of this blog? To let you know that we must reach forward, not reach backwards. We cannot linger and hold onto the things of our past because they can cripple us and keep us from a bright future. Yes, remember what has happened to you in the past, but do not get a crick in your neck because you are looking behind instead of ahead. Remember those happenings, so that we can learn from our mistakes-so that we can share help to others who are going thru a similar situation-so that we do not become stagnate, simply stuck there.
Leaving that duplex, was a really hard thing to do. I had been only 18 when I got married and having my husband was all I knew. My future was like this wide-open bright light, without shape and density, that blinded me because of its brightness, making me unable to see what to do-where to go-the fear of going into the unknown. But God helped me to turn my head forward and to take one step at a time, leaning on Him for strength!
I want to leave you with this scripture that gave me and will give you hope for our uncertain days of our future, right now in the year 2020. Philippians 3:13-14 reads:
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Are you getting a crick in your neck by looking back at the past? Don’t be like Lot’s wife. Look ahead, strive and live your life reaching forward to the goal: our prize-eternal life, with our God when we leave this earth. Close that door to the past and joyfully go into your future! Take His hand. Who knows where God will lead you! We do not know what the future holds, but we do know WHO holds that future!
Till next time! Keela