This past week has been a bit of a journey for me…in more ways than one. I was accepted into the Seminary at my post-secondary alma mater, which is located in a small town in Saskatchewan. A town which holds a lot of significant memories for me – most of them…not great ones.
It’s the town where I moved when I was only 17 years old. A child still. It’s the town where I made friends and said goodbye to them. It’s where I struggled to figure out who I was and who I wanted to become. It was the town where I experimented and made a lot of poor choices. It was the town where I consumed my first bottle of wine, where I dated (too many) boys, where I was first engaged (and promptly cheated on by that fiancé), where I first had sex, where I struggled to find my identity and place of belonging in the world. It is the town where I met my first husband, where we dated, where we were engaged, where we got married, where we had our first home, and where I wondered if maybe I had made a mistake in that decision. Needless to say, coming back to this town was wrapped in much anxiety.
On Day One, I arrived and found my allotted accommodations for the week and decided to go for a slow walk before unloading the car. I found myself meandering toward the Seminary, still in some disbelief that the Lord would lead me back here 22 years after first setting foot in the campus. I walked around the old dormitory buildings, remembering rooms that I once called home for a semester at a time. And I walked through the empty parking lot which once house the skating arena where my first husband proposed to me 18 years ago. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our first home. And I kept walking.
On Day Two, I headed straight to my classroom, excited that I was finally pursuing the degree I had wanted to so long ago. But my heart and my head were filled with anxiety, recognizing the hallways, noticing what has changed, noting what hadn’t, and fearful of entering the chapel portion of the academic building – where my first spouse and I were married. At lunch, I could no longer handle the significant anxiety that was threatening to take over me, so I decided to face my problem head on. With my hand over my pounding heart, I marched into the chapel, and looked at the spot where I stood and made my wedding vows before God, family, and friends. And I forced myself to address it.
There is so much tension we tend to hold on to with our pasts, isn’t there? Sometimes, it seems easier to simply “leave the past in the past” and place distance between ourselves and whatever the “past” is for us. But that expression doesn’t bear much weight when our past is what haunts our present. How do we learn to navigate the now if we haven’t allowed ourselves to acknowledge the before…in a healthy way? Our past has the power to dictate our present and our future. But I’ve also learned that there is good news here. It doesn’t have to! I was wrestling with how to do this, and perhaps it may seem too simplistic to you, (and I certainly don’t want to trivialize people’s very real pain), but there is power in bringing our pain before our Friend Jesus. “What a privilege to carry everything to the Lord in prayer.”
So, that is what I did. When my past mistakes and failed hopes and dreams threatened to choke the joy out of my present, I sat down in the very spot where I first made my marriage vows, and I gave all of these things to Jesus, asking Him to lessen the pain of my memories, giving them fully to Him to carry, and to help me be fully present in the place He has allowed me to be right now. And slowly, my racing heartbeat calmed, my shoulders relaxed, and I could feel His presence with me. I hope to be back in this town and on this campus much more over the next few years and I did not want these past memories to destroy the potential joy of the here and now.
I asked the Lord, “How can I even walk through these areas and not be reminded of those things?” I don’t know how I didn’t notice it until this week, but in that very spot where I was first married, up high where the tall walls meet the roof, there lies a cross. And I felt Him reply quite simply, “Look at me instead.” And there it was. The reminder…the knowledge…I’ve needed all along: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
It has not been an easy journey. But it has been a holy one. The years that I would cry out to the Lord, begging Him for peace, never knowing how to find it…He heard me. The 17 year old girl who would stand on the back road of this small town and wonder who she was and where she was going, has finally found peace that the Lord has guided and will continue to guide her footsteps. It doesn’t mean that my life is currently full of peace. That’s far from true. It’s still chaotic at times. But I’m recognizing that when the Lord, Who shepherd’s us so very well, sometimes makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters, it doesn’t mean that our current situation is actually green or still. Sitting on the floor in that chapel was anything but what I envisioned to be fields of green or peaceful, lapping waters. But because He met me there, it was peaceful. Because He is my peace. Not my circumstances. Not my location. Not my past. Not my failures. Not even my memories. Jesus, Himself, meets us where we are – in our anxiety, in our grief – and becomes our peace, our comfort, and our strength to continue on. We have nothing to fear when He is with us.
I never envisioned that coming back to a place where significant portions of my adult life development occurred, where choices and core memories were made, albeit, mostly negative ones, would be the place the Lord would lead me back to in order to provide healing for it. But I can truthfully say that I’ve walked through that chapel (and other areas in this small town) numerous times since Day Two, and each time, I turn my eyes to the cross. And I smile. And my heart stays steady. And I take a deep breath. Because He is with me. He has the capability of turning our places of hurt into green pastures and still waters. You only need meet Him there.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” – Psalm 23
Finding A Place To Call Home 