You Never Let Go

I'm standing in my kitchen at 11:22pm wrapping up chocolate covered pretzels for the girls at my Mom's Time Out table. We meet in about 10 hours, that is a depressing thought! Not much time for sleep.

I'm also talking to myself as I work through what I am going to say in a few days at the women's Christmas banquet that I am going to emcee.

My point is, my mind is a little bit of everywhere, yet nowhere.

I have some music playing and am currently listening to the song "You Never Let Go" by Matt Redmen (it's on my playlist on the right hand side if you want to click on it and listen to it). I'm completely taken back to the first time I heard that song last April. I can't hear this song without going back to that night. It is a night that is engraved in my brain and my soul for the rest of my life. It was a night that I experienced the body of Christ in a new way. It was a heart wrenching night. A night full of questions. A night full of tears. A night full of hurt. A night full of anger. At the same time there was peace in the midst of the storm. We listened to this song. The lyrics stung. The lyrics comforted. We cried. We prayed. I saw grown men's hearts breaking. I saw people holding one another up, figuratively and literally. It was a night when I think I experienced a microscopic piece of how God's heart breaks at our sin and how much the sacrifice of our daily failures really cost. Ironically, this experience took place at Easter. I remember clearly that Sunday church service as the reality of God's sacrifice for our sins was revealed to me in a new light.

As I stand here in my kitchen I keep thinking how our past doesn't define us. I think that is a misnomer. It's not our past that is the definition, it's who we are now and what we're doing with the past. The here and now. The present. The past, be it good or bad has definitely influenced who we are today, but it can either be a crutch or a label we cling to or a step that moves us forward.

I hate that night back in April. I can't believe that was 7 months ago. I feel so raw right now just remembering the details that in some ways it feels like last week. At the same time, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude as I listen to the lyrics of that song, that God never let's go. Through the calm and through the storm. That our past failures don't define us in His eyes.