Dear Worn-Out Diaries,
Your pages, now with a dusty hue,
Tell stories that I once knew,
And today as I revisit you,
My heart skips a beat or two,
You look pale and all I do is skim through,
Those pages I once wrote, all those stories that I now call untrue.
Love,
The New Me
Footnotes:
When I was in my early teens, I was so inspired by Anne Frank’s diary that I wanted to be a ‘diarist’. Somehow, I thought it was pain and suffering that attracted readers and I could do with a little attention at that point. I had chapters on various people in my life who I wrote off as lost cause. Every single page had pain and struggle. In short, my diaries were soaking with self-pity.
I got hold of some of my diaries recently and I was so embarrassed with all the exaggerated emotions in every page. I just skimmed through it and told myself, “You were a piece of work, Oshin!”
It is both funny and interesting how God used each and every big and small thing in my life to shape me into the person I am today. The 13-year-old me was fixated on fitting into school cliques and joining the ‘fashionable ministry’ team—worship team. I wanted constant growth, and this growth was to be always translated into positions. In the process, I hurt myself a lot. I also let people hurt me. That’s right, I LET THEM HURT ME.
Thank God, the 28-year-old me knows a little better. I have twice as much drama and putdowns in my life than my teens but I am stronger now, and wiser. And maybe 10 years from now, I will be stronger and wiser than what I am now.
Last week, our pastor quoted a verse— Proverbs 19:11, A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.
“How can I overlook offense, God? My blood boils when people talk down on me!”
I am a David sometimes—just crying, complaining and venting. “Forgiveness comes from a place of LOVE!”—this is what our pastor preached that Sunday. And it was for me.
I had hit my lowest last week and I saw a version of my 13-year-old self, spring to life at that point. “I LET SOMEONE HURT ME” and this brought about anger and bitterness. I dug up all the bad memories from my brain’s storehouse of old, and almost forgotten memories. I began quoting them, one by one, and went into a downward spiral.
Did it help me? —Absolutely NOT!
I just wanted to prove that I went through a lot of hard things in life. Just that, I forgot one thing—nobody has it easy!Somehow, it seemed like I took pride in all the sufferings of my past. Now that is a really horrible place to be. But it has roots from when you were a child and how people around you would take pride in how much hard work they had to do and how little we do. It all starts with, “when I was your age……”
“When I was your age, I used to walk 10km to get to school; you have it so easy!”
“When I was your age, I had to borrow books from other children; you have it so easy!”
…an endless list of comparisons making it seem like one should take pride in the hard things. No, I won’t blame it on bad parenting. A couple of months back Sandy had written a blog on stopping cycles, identifying patterns and breaking it—“we are not going to reflect the same pain and hurt on our children that we went through.”
“God has given us the wisdom to identify patterns and the power to break them.”
It took me three days to recognise and repent for my mistakes. But all this drama definitely nicked my heart—a wound that only Jesus can heal. As I take the walk down to Jordan, like Naaman, for healing, I would like to remind you that healing is essential; do not overlook it. However, healing can be messy and would require a lot of humility. For starters, be intentional about not boasting about your past hurt. It is done and dusted. Instead, be grateful for how God took you through it and how He is using that brokenness to heal someone else.
Remember, you are primarily a child of God who is designed to reflect His image.
So, don’t let the past bandages hang on to you.