Topic: Cleaning Up Your Past

Our past is littered with the debris of our mistakes, failings, and missed opportunities. If the debris of our past is piled high upon our shoulders, we can throw off this pile of garbage. Unfortunately for us we cannot turn back the clock and walk back into yesterday and remake the history of what we have done or not done in the past. Although we cannot remake our past, we can learn from our past if we are excruciatingly honest. We cannot make our past go away. To clean up our past we must learn to forgive ourselves. If we have guilt today over what we did yesterday, our guilt today means we have grown up enough to see our mistakes. Our guilt today over what we did yesterday is a positive attribute because our guilt today means we have the insight to grow and never repeat the behavior of yesterday. In much of life we learn by doing. In much of life we learn the hard way by making mistakes and falling down. What we did in our past is not nearly as important today as what we are going to do today and tomorrow. Although we cannot clean up our past like we can clean up the litter on a lawn, we can build a future free of what we did in the past. Our past can haunt us, but we can use our haunting to understand what we were like before we changed. We can use our haunting to commit our life to be better today than we were yesterday. Where we have been in the past is of no consequence if we know where we are now and where we want to go tomorrow. Continuing to look back over our shoulder because of our mistakes, failings, and missed opportunities hurts us because looking back over our shoulder takes our focus off our present and future. Indeed, our past is not salvageable and made clean as if circumstances never were. What we can always do today is make sure our future is not a repeat of yesterday in terms of the mistakes we made yesterday. What we can always do today is make sure our future IS a repeat of yesterday in terms of our successes of yesterday.

These words were posted at one of Shepherd's Care Ministries Sites called Wisdom Moment. This site is located at:
http://www.shepherdscare.net/wisdomminute

Shepherd's Care Ministries Main Site located at:
http://www.shepherdscare.net/