2005 was a grueling, hard, nightmarish year for me. Strangely, it resulted in some leaps-and-bounds growth in my relationship with God. I look back on that year, and all the horrible things I experienced in it, and I always feel a well of gratitude and love for God, and amazement at how very different I am because of that year. I fully intend to blog about it!
I mention this because recently someone commented how some people get by on their old testimony. He was saying how they rest on one experience as the be-all/end-all of their existence, and in the meantime God isn’t doing anything fresh in their lives. This made me wonder if all my contemplation about 2005 is somehow holding me back from God doing something fresh in me or through me.
By now you’ve probably noticed I’m the type to hash and rehash thoughts until they’re liquefied. That’s just kinda my personality. So along with rehashing the events of 2005, I’ve added to the pot this notion that maybe I need to stop thinking about that year all the time.
Because–I gotta be honest–I think about it every day of my life. I think about how horrible it looked, but how God made it amazingly, miraculously good (Romans 8:28). I think about my perspective of God before that year (unfeeling, distant, obliged), and how utterly opposite it is now because of that year. I know deep in my gut that He loves me and cares more about me than I have the capacity to understand.
So should I move on? It’s been nearly three years now. Maybe it’s too much to think about it every day. Am I getting in the way of God doing something fresh in my life?
But when I considered it, I felt a defiance in my heart. How can I stop thinking about something so wonderful? Why should I stop thinking about how God gave me beauty for ashes? The truth is, thinking on those events gives me courage to face every day. I know that if God could get me through 2005, He can get anyone through anything. Even today I get fresh understanding about the things happening in my life right now that I wouldn’t understand if not for 2005.
Maybe in time the beauty and awe and gratitude I feel will gently fade away. But right now, even three years later, it’s just as vivid as if it happened yesterday. I won’t set it aside like the pleasant memory of a nice vacation, some meaningless trinket of a thought. I get the “fresh testimony” thing. I really do. But … I guess this testimony isn’t over yet.
Frankly Speaking 
oh please don’t get over it! God instructs the Jews to celebrate holidays in memoral to all the great trials He brought them through! So Celebrate! Too many people do not yet know, and too many people are still needing to hear about your 2005 as hope for their 2007,2008 so keep talking about it!!!
Awwww! Thanks Jacqueline, that makes so much sense about God’s instructions to the Jews. I hadn’t thought of it that way! (((hugs)))