A new way of looking at things

As some of you may know, I am taking a new Bible Study class by Beth Moore on Esther. Today was the first class I was able to go to since the kids have been sick, but I have been diligently doing the homework for the class. Let me just say that I LOVE BETH MOORE. She is such a down to earth, true person who has some great things to say.

Today she had lots and lots of awesomely good soul food, but one thing she said just really "clicked" for me. She said, "you cannot amputate your history from your destiny". WOW...so that means that you cannot just wake up one morning and have NO "past" at all. Her answer was, No, you cannot. Her point was so true. As Christians we sometimes think that our past somehow disappears after we become a Christian/or ask for forgiveness but our past and our future both have similar roots. Those roots being in Jesus! Her points were as follows.

• If we didn't have a past than we would have no way of understanding what redemption meant.
  
• Our past shapes us into the person we are suppose to be
• Others can learn from our "stories"
• WE can learn from our past mistakes.
  

This being said, it doesn't mean that we are not new creations in Christ. We HAVE been forgiven for those sins that we have repented for. Just remember that God can use our past mistakes/sins to bring glory to his name. Look up Jeremiah 29:11...it's always a good verse to help with an unknown future!

*on a completely unrelated topic: during the writting of this post, there was an incident involving poopy finger paints. Yes, I said poopy finger paints. The crib and child were absolutely covered from head to toe with yucky smelly gross loose poopy! AHHHHHHHH. Sadly, no pictures were taken of this episode...