The Journey

2010 (C) Jennifer McClearen, used by permission

This life is a journey. It begins at conception and continues, if not interrupted, until natural death. As the years progress and more of life is behind instead of ahead, it is natural to look back on the journey. As I consider where I am at this moment in time, I also look at the choices made that helped me  arrive at "this place," wherever that might be, in life.

2010 (C) Shelly Stotts Photography, used by permission

I don't have regrets. There are choices that I look back on that pain me, because my choices caused others pain. There are times when I wish I had more information, could look into the future and see how I might have been a better help to another, and I live with the fact I made choices based on the knowledge I had at the time. There are times when I wish I were wiser, which really incorporates all the above, but I wasn't, so endlessly lamenting with regrets is non-productive.

In the end, when all is said and done, in order not to carry around the weight of past choices, even though I live with the consequences of the sum total of those choices, I must let it all go. I must accept myself, my limitations, in order to be free of regrets. It's why I love the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons. It's about growing old, accepting who we are and letting go of the past, except for the LOVE we carry with us.

To celebrate the journey of LIFE, then, I must accept the weeds, the thorns, and the thistles.

As a Christian, I've confessed those choices that caused others pain, sought forgiveness, made restitution where able, but what carries me and keeps me from wallowing in the swamp of the past, is that I know God is a redeeming God. Nothing is un-redeemable. God can take any situation, any relationship, any past, with all of its choices, and weave it into something beautiful. Each and every choice, is a small thread in a larger tapestry called LIFE that in the end will cause all to bow at the magnificence of the LOVE that fashioned not only my life, but all LIFE.