Who I was

It’s an interesting study to take a step back every once in a while and see, as time passes, what changes and what stays the same.

Sometimes I’ll do this by reading through old journals. This normally results in haunting memories that take a while to fade away into history again. I see myself and how the more things change, the more some things stay the same. Thankfully, not everything does – but enough to make it relatively depressing. So I’ve not done too much of that lately.

What I did do yesterday, though, was something equally potent and a lot more uplifting. Music connects me to the past more than just about anything else. They say the sense of smell draws people most vividly into the past, but for me, it’s my sense of hearing, and particularly music. People often get on me for “having a song for everything,” and it’s true. I do. And it’s because life has provided me with real-life associations with various songs. Nothing like a certain melody or artist to take me back to… well… just about anywhere.

Yesterday, I listened to a pair of CDs my dear friend Laura made for my 17^th birthday. I can’t believe that was nearly five years ago. I was a senior in high school then, and she made these CDs of “our” songs, of tunes we’d sing on the band bus trips, of songs we’d call in to the radio station to request when we were staying up WAY too late, and other songs that we thought absolutely defined our existence. Everything from Enya and instrumental movie pieces to Seal and “Brown Eyes Blue” and half the soundtrack of “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” And it made me think of who I was as a 15, 16, 17 year old girl… what I thought about, what I wanted from life. I was so optimistic then, not that I hadn’t been hurt, but I was just… happy. Things were so much more black and white. I had dear friends who were not believers, and I was helping fight for their souls, praying for them as best I could. And then I came to PHC. *wry smile*

It’s sort of strange. In a lot of ways, I am very much the same person. I wish, though, that I had the same freshness of perspective on life. But I wouldn’t trade these last four years for the world, even with all the pain, because there is a wisdom that comes with that experience. And that’s valuable and happens for a reason. I have only really felt like I’ve become a human being since I left campus last May. Can we have the best of both worlds? Can I have the youthful “joy of my salvation” along with the wisdom of life experience?

… or is it that the joy of my salvation takes on a new form as I grow older, and as I see more and more what God has saved me from, and what I could be apart from His grace, my joy grows in a different way?

I think one way that’s been happening in my life as of late is realizing that I shouldn’t treat personal affronts as anything of consequence. I am not my own. Period. That’s what Scripture says. If I have truly accepted the name of Christ as the label for my life, than I am to expect trials. I’ve been warned that the world WILL hate me. But it hates me because it first hated my Master. So I should mourn not over the fact that I have been wronged, but over the fact that there are root issues behind that other person’s actions that indicate a separation from the Creator. Surely, that causes God’s heart to break. Oh, that God would teach my heart to break over the things His heart breaks for! I’ve learned just in friendships that one indication of closeness is knowing what makes the other person rejoice, and what causes them to grieve. I hope that as I draw closer to God, I will disregard my natural desire to defend myself, and only champion the cause of my Lord.

Teach me to consider
Any offense against me
Not as assault or injury
Against myself,
But to mourn only that
Which is an affront to Thee
And point those lost
Back to Thy throne,
From which all wholeness comes.