Why is letting go the hardest thing a person has to go through?

Mothers have a hard time in letting go of their kids when they go off to college and leave. Fathers take it hard when they walked their daughters down the aisle to give them away at their wedding. That is one time when you may see a grown man cry as a father is giving his daughter away in marriage.

When it comes to a father and daddy’s girl, some father become overprotective of their daughter to the point of sitting up cleaning their gun in reality they are waiting for their daughter to return home from her date. Any prospective boy dating a girl, they fear meeting the father the most, not knowing what to expect. I heard it says that raising a daughter is harder than raising a son. The reason: a parent worried about their daughter coming home pregnant. That’s why there was such thing as a shotgun wedding.

Sometimes, it’s about letting go of the past. I’m not saying that we should forget our history. We are to remember our history, otherwise we are doom to repeat it. I’m talking about letting go of the pain and the hurt you have suffered. Those who have been abused knows that letting go of that is very hard.

From someone who had been sexually molested, I know how difficult it is to let go of the pain. Some people think that when you forgive you should also forget. I’m here to tell you from experience, you’ll never forget the abuse you suffered.

It’s easy to forgive but hard to forget. You cannot forget the hurt that was done to you. When you forgive, it doesn’t mean you can ever trust that person ever again.

Don’t consume your tomorrow feeding on your yesterdays. As Dolly Parton sang, “You still got a lot of living to do.” Don’t let what happened to you keep you from achieving your dreams, everything you ever want.

Decide today to get rid of any “loser’s limps” which you may still be carrying from some past experience. In other words, don’t let your past keep you from moving forward. Apostle Paul was once a chief of sinners. He made it his life purpose to persecute Christians. Then when he was on the road to Damascus, he was blinded. Once his eyes were opened, he became a top missionary for God. Moses had killed an Egyptians soldier and yet God still used him to freed the Israelites out of Egypt.

In a sense, every conversion is surprising.

In Luke 9:60-62, verse 60 says, “Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Verse 61, “Still another said, I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family. In verse 62, Jesus replied, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

The more we look backward, the less able we are to see forward. It is never God who holds us back. It is always our own choosing to allow the past to keep us from living to the fullest in the present and future. Failure is waiting around the corner for those who are living off yesterday’s successes and failures. We should choose to be forward-focused, not past-possessed.

Before I went on my work and witness trip to Indianapolis, my oldest sister, Barb was dying of cancer. I had people telling me that I shouldn’t go, like my mother. I was torn between serving the Lord on a mission trip and being there for my family. A friend from church, Paul Dennis sat me down and reminded me that missionaries choose to leave their family behind to go to foreign countries to serve the Lord. This passage about Jesus saying, “Let the dead bury the dead,” says it all. It was a great experience I wouldn’t have miss in all the world. When my sister had passed away, someone from the group offered to help me to get back if I so chose to. I prayed and I knew I was where I was supposed to be. When I got back home, I was told that I made the right decision.

In Philippians 3:13-14, “Brother, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Now my sister, Barb was the third oldest in my family and the first to died. She took care of us younger kids, while our parents worked.

The key here is: “forgetting those things which are behind.”

It is wonderful that persons should be so suddenly and yet so greatly changed.

Perhaps God will reach down and convert some strident anti-Christian voice today. Those who are the loudest may be the ones most secretly longing to believe. Let’s pray for some more “surprising conversions.”

Who knows they could be the next Apostle Paul or Chuck Colson?

Today is the day to begin to shake off the shackles of the past and move forward. This is the day the Lord hath made!

As Taylor Swift sang, “Shake It Off!” The time is now to shake off the shackles of your past hurts and move forward. It doesn’t mean we are to forget our history. We are not to dwell in the past. The past is past. It has no life. Don’t let your past dictate what your future and present will be. You can overcome past hurt.

I may have been a victim; but I’m also an overcomer. I’m a survivor of child sexual abuse.

Let the dead bury the dead, go out and serve the Lord, wherever He may send you.