A New Chapter

Sweat made my nightclothes cling to me. Morning had come once again and disturbed my sleeping state. This time though, I wasn't too upset about that. Some things you just wish you could leave behind, wish they'd never happened, and you could take an eraser to your own history and blot it from your memory and everyone else's. It was my fault. How did it take me a year to realize that I needed to quit blaming him for my own mistakes? I deceived my parents. I lied. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and yet I led him on anyway. What was I thinking? I know what I was thinking. It was new, no one had been forthright in the past and said, "I like you, will you go out with me?" A whole new experience, and what attracted me was the danger of the situation. Hah, danger? Silly word to use, but for me, it was a daring thing to go behind my parents' backs and their direct orders.

And that is what brought on a year of guilt, shame, hesitancy, and depression. Wow. I think God knows what He's talking about when He uses everyone to speak to me to tell me I'm doing wrong. That was one heck of a month too, what with everyone on the same topic, every function, every discussion, and I knew it. I knew what God was telling me, and I covered my ears and kept going. When it came to my will versus that of my Lord and my parents, I was bull-headed and stubborn, and they were just trying to protect my heart.

My forehead was still damp, with some of the wispy curls sticking to it. Another dream; another disturbing, mentally torturous nightmare.

You remember Frodo, how on Weathertop the ringwraith gored his shoulder? Every subsequent year, his wound would ache at the recollection of his pain. Every October seventh, he would battle with the memories of that night.

It has been a year. But did I ever really get over it, did the saying "time heals all wounds" really ring true? If it did, then I have no idea why I was still haunted. It wasn't the fact that he kissed me. It wasn't even that I felt I had given a little piece of my heart away. It was the knowledge that I had directly disobeyed a direct order and was reaping the consequences. I was so at fault for so much.

Throughout the day, I felt like a drone, attending to necessary tasks, but not feeling anything. But the Lord has His ways of working and pulling me back to Him, to understand that I will mess up, as much as I hate it, but that He is always reaching, pursuing my heart and desiring to be the object of my affection. After a Thursday night breakdown session, in which everything tumbled out in Bible study in a messy heap, I went home and cried. But it wasn't that the salty drops were from self-pity, or even that things hadn't gone my way, but more that I realized how utterly screwed up I was, and how much it was I to blame for my own problems instead of everyone else. And a phrase surfaced in my mind... a sweet memory of a time in Mexico.

"I will sing a new song to the Lord." It was a new day. The past is unchangeable, all it can do is offer the experience to help us see how we must change our attitude, our outlook, and how we are supposed to view our Lord's forgiveness. I am forgiven! I am freed from that sin, He took it from me the day I brought it before the cross on which He had removed every wrong thing I had ever done. Why was I wallowing? I am supposed to rejoice in forgiveness and learn from my mistakes, not to commit them again, but also not to let them become a barrier to the happiness my God has in store for me.

It is a new day, and a new chapter is beginning. The pages are already being stained with the ink of history's pen. Friday morning dawned bright and clear. A new day. And the burden was gone.

"He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon
a rock, making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of
praise to our God." Psalm 40:2-3