Flipping pages of a good book goes undetected. An automatic response to bring the next desired scene is not something we consider a nuisance. It is a movement made with little to no conscious effort due to the benefit it brings. Just a natural response to a desired outcome.
The story line may weave in and out of your emotions bringing highs and lows. Gripping tales that sit waiting for you to pick up and devour. Adventures to travel in the recesses of your mind. Heart-pounding rides of terror, heart-ache, excitement, conviction. Words that inspire and ignite the senses or just stir the mind to wonder.
Not unlike flipping pages of a life. Days on the calendar clicking off the timeline of a life. Each day unknown until the end of it. Some planned and executed. Some planned and ignored. Some awaited anxiously. Some anxiously avoided. Some excitedly met and mastered. Others met and regretted.
When you finish a good book there is a sense of satisfaction. The outcome was pleasing to your mind and heart. Justice served. Reconciliation known. Good wins in the end. And they lived happily ever after.
Life doesn’t always play out the way a good read does. Some of the pages get ripped along the edges or torn out completely. Coffee spills run ink down a page leaving a big blob of mess. Sometimes the spine gets injured ruining the ability to hold it all together. And if the front cover is removed the insides are exposed to the elements.
Flipping to a new page can be voluntary or involuntary. Those involuntary flips can be hard. Memories will revisit even after two years pass. You try to think long and hard and too much about what went wrong and what caused that page to flip so violently. Would anything have prevented it? Would you even want to go back?
I suppose the only thing that can be done is create a new page after two years. Time cannot be turned back. This is not to be regained. Not if it is really lost. Redemption is in God’s hands. Not mine.
Perhaps reconciliation comes in the heart and mind of individuals and is in the form of knowing there is nothing more to what was once and is not to be again. Reconciliation found in letting go. Reconciliation found in knowing “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB)
Accepting that this page has turned, even ripped. Allow the memories to remind of mistakes made and of lessons learned. Sitting in a place of decision to move forward to the next right thing. Accepting the reconciliation offered from my Savior.
A new chapter begins…
