A recent set of questions
has caused me to reflect again on an issue I faced and dealt with in my social group in college. From a psychological, spiritual, and counseling point of view, it’s something that does arise periodically and should be handled with care and wisdom. The issue is this — finding a balance between spending too much time thinking about mistakes made in the past, and moving on with life. I’ve met a few people who just find it so very difficult to get over feelings of guilt and shame regarding things they have done or said somewhere in their past. For them, it’s a great stumbling block, a hurdle that they just can’t seem to get over. A lot of depression cases are
based on this sort of thing. They just wish they could go back and fix it, that doing so would make their present lives so much better. (The trouble is that it probably wouldn’t actually fix
things as much as they expect.)
There is a distinct difference between being stuck in the past and beating oneself up over past mistakes and learning from those same mistakes. Granted, it is sometimes VERY easy to get hung up on those things, but doing so really serves no practical purpose and leads nowhere good. Instead, and this takes a great amount of work and not a little bit of pain, effort must be made to pick up the pieces, face the consequences squarely, and use the situation, however
unpleasant, to learn wisdom, endurance, and patience. The interesting part of this is that, if you allow it, these situations can be some of the best learning periods and spiritual development times you will ever face. The moments when I felt closest to God, when I matured most as a Christian, were probably in some of the darkest times of my life. It was hard to get through, and I did feel guilt and shame and even a little bit of depression, and I didn’t always like the consequences, but that was okay because when I relied on God I found it all that much easier to deal with and I learned greater wisdom than if I had fixated on the unpleasantness of my circumstances and shunned God.
hey! you’re the star of the night! thanks for the help for this old granny!!! i appreciate your blogs… don’t agree with everything but it’s great to stretch the mind, isn’t it? god bless you. :)
Couldn’t agree with you more. The hardest thing to learn in life, for every believer, is to learn how to “give it to God”. When you think you had given it to God…you really might not of. That’s the hardest thing in the world…and I can’t even explain how to do it…it’s just supernatural.Â
Meanwhile, as I am somewhat regretful for the things I have done in the past, I am also very thankful for them. They give me a foothold over the devil (in regards to the things I am over)…they bring me closer to God and make me rely on Him more. My testimony has been more helpful to many people…and each time I tell it, the less time Satan has a hold on me. And I am thankful for the person it has grown me into… But yes, I admit that parts of the things I have done are hard to get over…but that’s where God comes in…
I love your deep posts. Keep them up.
i needed that.
:) like your post
I read one of your comments on another site, (beautifuldreamer120), and you don’t know me, but i LIVE for dream analysis so please pardon this comment. I won’t try to analyze your dream (as I am actually much more unknowledgable in dream interpretation than I pretend to be ;-)). But I WILL say that you had an abstract dream, which is supposedly quite common with kids. I’ve never had one, and I’ve so glad I’ve heard of one now! :) haha. (Usually these dreams consist of a large circling dot or something that kids are afraid of without logic…)
okay, sorry, random. I’m emily by the way.
-k bye.
Wow, I go away for one night and people post like crazy. I love it! Maybe I oughta go away more often!