Never Let Anything Hold You Back
“Your future is not governed by the past. You have the power to let go of the past and move on.” ~ Unknown
One hundred and thirty-three. That is what my grandmother would be today. One hundred and thirty-three, give or take a year or two. (They didn’t issue birth certificates in her country at the time she was born so there was no clear recollection of her birth year, just her birth date.)
When she was middle aged, she was in the woods mushroom picking with her husband. She had gotten ahead of my grandpa and she heard a thump behind her. When she went back to him, she found that he had died of a massive heart attack. Her sorrow and shock also caused her to have a heart attack though she survived hers. It took some doing, but grandma found the wherewithal to move on. She was not going to let the past event of her husband’s death freeze her in place.
When she was older, she continued to do what she wanted to do. Living in a second floor flat, she went down a flight to her garden daily and sometimes down two flights to do laundry the old-fashioned way with a wringer washer. When her doctor told her she had to quit taking the stairs because of her health, she proclaimed that she had buried two doctors who told her that and that should would bury him as well. A few years later, she attended her doctor’s funeral.
She was not going to let anything hold her back. Yes, things happened to her, sometimes sad and horrible things. But they were relegated to her past and she always looked ahead to her future and allowed that to keep her moving. It kept her moving all the way to her death at one hundred and two. She was truly an inspiration to me as I was growing up.
As I wrote yesterday, Easter is not over. It has only begun and it is speaking to our hearts as clearly as it can to motivate us to look to the future and to move into the future with courage and hope. Jesus died on the cross. But that death does not immobilize us because Jesus rose from the dead. His resurrection fills us with hope, joy, and confidence.
Did we do everything we promised God and ourselves that we were going to do during Lent? If so, wonderful. If not, there’s always next year. Don’t let the past Lent hold you back. Instead, look to the future and live for the future. It is in looking ahead that we find what we need to face the day because our future is bright with the hope of resurrection.
FAITH ACTION: In Easter Joy, look to your future with hope and confidence.