“I help make it?!”

All five of my boys asked me this question as toddlers every time I started making a fruit smoothie at home. They’d grab a stool, push it over to the counter where I always set out my blender, and grab a spoon out of the adjacent drawer to get a scoop of frozen yogurt. Their definition of “helping” meant eating the ingredients as I added them to the blender, of course.

One day, when Graham was just four years old, he exclaimed, “Sometimes in my mind, I think about what dreams I had, and then I blend them up with a blender, and they turn into music and that makes me sing!”  

Oh, to have a four-year-old imagination, right?!

But what if we did that spiritually? What if we took all our dreams – ones that have come true and those that haven’t, as well as our past and present-day realities – and we blended everything together to get a sweet final product? What if we stopped trying to separate the “good” and the “bad” and accepted it all, in order to rest in where God has us today – blessed and loved by a Good Father regardless of any specific circumstances – and counted that reason enough to rejoice? What if we burst into song simply because the sum of all our dreams, thoughts, regrets, wishes, sins, and prayers is always, and forever will be, overcome by God’s unconditional and sacrificial love displayed on the cross, His faithfulness to see us through inevitable storms while being our ultimate source of peace and comfort along the way, and His redemptive power to heal our deepest wounds? What if we just daily sang for joy over who He is and all that He has done?

In order to write Desert Vineyards, I had to look back. I had to look back, long and hard, for an extended period of time. For several months on end, I thought about the past every day, I wrote about memories I didn’t want to remember, I relived painful memories with ample scar tissue, and I struggled to put everything I had to say into words and full sentences, paragraphs and complete chapters. I relied greatly on Jesus to help me articulate the past and all the feelings and emotions that came with. It was God-driven, yet brutal nonetheless.

As it took an enormous toll, I remember being hopeful and thinking, “If I can just get through writing this book, I’ll be better. It’ll be okay once it’s done. Then, no more remembering, no more reflecting, no more analyzing – I can just move on.”

On the contrary, what happened was I ended up feeling stuck in the past, trying to recover from the entire writing process and navigating how to live with the humility and sacrifices it took me to write such a vulnerable piece and the various responses that follow. Re-opened wounds slowly became a drain on my heart, stealing my joy a little more and a little more each passing day, and somewhere along the way, I started picking up all the broken pieces (even the ones God had fully redeemed). I started carrying them around as burdens again. And unfortunately, some burdens gain weight in hindsight. They’re even heavier than before because when you see the whole picture, or at least more of the picture than you could before, your perspective changes (for better and for worse).

Here’s the thing, though: We are called to remember. We are called to be reminded of the past and all that God has done in and through our lives. And we are called to share our past and our stories with others. If we stare at the past for too long, however, and we let ourselves dwell on the choices we’ve made or the situations we had no power to change – all the storms that dragged us through the mud – we can start picking up the pieces again and carrying old wounds like immovable burdens we’re powerless to do anything about. And the dangerous part is that if we’re not careful, we can go back to our old ways. We can revert to previous paths of sin, as well as find new ones, ultimately forgetting the goodness of God.

We see this happen time and time again in the Old Testament with the Israelites, and Psalm 106 is a pristine example. Psalm 106 takes us through the history of Isreal and summarizes how the Israelites forgot all the amazing things God had done, the miracles He’d performed, the consequences they faced for their sin, and then, ultimately, the resounding love, forgiveness, and provisions God repeatedly showed them: “Then they believed his promises and sang his praise. But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold” (Psalm 106:12-13). And as we keep reading, it only grows more dim. The Israelites also exchanged the Lord for an idol (v.20), forgot their Savior (v.21), despised His blessings, lived in unbelief, grumbled, and disobeyed (v.24-25), worshiped other gods (v.28), and refused to repent and turn back to the Lord (v. 43). Praise be to God for verse 44: “Yet he took note of their distress when he heard their cry; for their sake he remembered his covenant and out of his great love he relented.”  (It's important to note that when the Bible speaks of “God remembering”, it is not an implication that He forgot. It means that He acted – He moved according to His own will; He fulfilled a promise; He displayed His faithfulness.)

For me, the issue has not been completely forgetting what God has done. (I pray I never get over it!) But I have felt God warning me that because I looked back for so long, I have allowed my heart to be weighed down by past burdens, and consequently, my ability to rejoice in Him – right now, today, in the present – has been woefully hindered. And if I keep hanging onto the wounds He’s already healed and the brokenness He’s already redeemed, then I am facing a dark path just like the Israelites experienced.

In recent weeks, the Holy Spirit helped me turn a corner, as He sweetly reminded me, “Sarah, I did not design you to be strong enough to carry all of life’s burdens. I certainly don’t need you to carry your past. I created you to be dependent on Me. You need me. I’m here to take everything that weighs you down. You’ve remembered. You’ve shared. Now it’s time to let go, look forward, and rejoice.” 

We must remember the past, not dwell on it. We are to rejoice in what God has done, not pick up old burdens to carry. We should keep our eyes on Him, not zero in on what lies behind us. We need to press forward in truth and freedom, not linger in old wounds and shame. He is a God who – yes, commands us to remember AND – delights in doing a new thing, a new work, a new miracle!

Isaiah 43:16-19 says:

This is what the LORD says –

he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,

who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together,

and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell in the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

So, my prayer is that this is an encouragement for you, whatever you’re going through: Lay it all down (or put it all into a blender) – your past, your present, and your future – and just sing! Just rejoice over Jesus. No matter who we are or where we are, He is worthy of that. He desires to do a new thing in your life. And His glory is so sweet! It’s sweeter than any fruit smoothie that my children still can’t get enough of.