Moving from our family home should have been an ordeal, but it wasn’t. Though we loved our spot in the country where we raised our children, cared for foster children, welcomed strangers and extended family for Thanksgiving feasts, managed 4-H animals, shot our guns and bows, scratched in the garden and enjoyed the quiet (and howling coyotes) for 20 years, we were ready for something new.
Good or Bad, the Past is Gone
I didn’t want to forget scenes like how our foster daughter, Kayli, looked when she’d go after eggs in the morning with her tangled hair, heavy bucket, and feet dragging. My daughter climbing the tree to her special place. My husband building the deck. The timber harvest when trees crashed down as we sat at dinner. Sitting on the children’s beds at night to hear them unburden their hearts.
And how could I leave the markings I’d made on the doorway to chart my children’s growth, and that of their friends?
Let it Go
“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 wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah :18-19 NIV).
This scripture reminds me that there were desert places in the past, as well as good times. Their memory causes grief when I think about the sad times and hurts we suffered. God tells us not to linger there, so I pulled up my tent pegs, folded up my belongings, and moved on.
The Past has Passed
God wants to show us what he’s doing, like when I waited to catch my mother’s eye before launching from the diving board at Jefferson Pool. “Watch me!” I’d yell. God says, “See, I’m doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
He’s making a way for us in isolated, dry, distressing places. In fact, he’s irrigating those wastelands, entirely changing the environment. He promised good things are coming.
I’m watching, Lord!
by Kathy Sheldon Davis
kathysheldondavis.com 