Getting Past the Past

One challenge to living in the present tense--to enjoying life today--is the sometimes-strong effect of past events on our lives and minds. Sometimes it is bad things--the death of a loved one, a personal failure, an unfortunate accident--that has shaped us and that continues to shape us, affecting how we see ourselves and how we act. Sometimes it is good things--a previous success at work, a personal triumph, the birth of a child--that forever change our self-image and way of looking at the world.

But either way, there is a danger of getting stuck in the past, of reliving the bad things in our mind, trying to think of what could have been done differently; or reliving the good things, never moving on and recognizing that there may be other successes in our lives to come. In extreme cases we can get stuck and completely lose touch with the present--we can be miserable, simply because we aren't engaging with the world around us today.

This Sunday we'll be talking about how to keep our pasts in healthy perspective so that they doesn't ruin the present. But this week, I read an article about a woman who has been through horrors--her family's fishing boat was blown to bits by Irish Republican Army terrorists, killing her father and son and seriously wounding her--and yet she has emerged with an appreciation of life and an ability to still enjoy the present. I found it inspirational, and I hope you do too.

See you Sunday.