[I wrote this a week ago for Five Minute Friday, but didn’t post and link it. I’m not sure why. I guess because I knew I needed to act upon it rather than just say it. Well, okay, I did some acting on it, so now I’ll go ahead and post it late.]
Free writing on the word prompt “After”:
Go!
There ought to be an After, to follow and contrast the Before.
Is there?
How different am I After?
Do I exude a new life, do living waters flow from my soul depths and water my heart and mind and others’ lives?
I don’t know, when a day grows dry and something nags, some sin thing I haven’t quite defined yet.
I feel I am the same old me… or, no, not that, I am not the woman I once was. Yet there’s not enough “after” to please me, or, I’m sure, to thrill with joy my resurrected and glorified Lord.
The resurrected glory life is an exchanged life. Methinks I have not exchanged enough old junk.
Exchange makes the Change of After.
Hanging on to worn-out oldies of the Before life makes piles of debris, hurdles and walls in the After path, bogs me down with useless extra weight, stumbles me up, makes me fall on my face, wordless, clueless.
I think I need to take a look around and discover what debris of the old “Before” I’ve not yet traded in for better beauties…
Good day for a declutter!
*****
Hello Sylvia…This is my first time here. You were recommended to me by my online friend, Lynn.
I relate to your post today. This is one of the areas where I often struggle. Exchanging the ‘old’ for the ‘new’. Getting bogged down in memories and shame. I decided early on that 2 Cor. 5:17 was my ‘life verse’, but then revert back to the old and forget that the new has come. You’re right…it does nothing but bog me down and trip me up. I’m slowly learning that that’s the time I need to grab my Bible and let GOD tell me who I am in HIS eyes, not what that annoying voice in my head is telling me. Lynn helped me to see that. 😀
Hi Jillie,
So glad you came to visit over here. What an excellent life verse! And how important it is to keep the kind of things you’re talking about exchanged! In fact, they are, buried in the deep blue sea but that annoying voice does everything it/he can to hoodwink us into thinking otherwise. You’re right, we need to go to God’s voice and flood out that other one with His truth. You’re reminding me that would be a good thing for me to go do right now! Thanks for stopping and commenting. God’s best blessings to you!
You’re right, Sylvie. It’s difficult to understand (and frankly, appreciate) the after until you’re well familiar with (and frankly, exasperated) with the before. Really understanding that the before is less desirable is incentive for seeking (and changing) for the after. Of course, the only after we really long for (and will fully realize) is the afterlife. Only then will God transform our before perfectly. (I like to think of other amazing makeovers, other brilliant afters preceded by less-than-desirable befores: bulbs/blossoms; rain/rainbows; chrysalides/butterflies. These earthly realities are wonderful, but will pale by comparison with the after and after and after eternity of heaven . . . )
Wonderful post. I’m so glad you retrieved and shared it. And glad that Jillie came your way. You two will greatly enjoy each other!
Blessings,
Lynn
For some of us the after looks startlingly different, but that doesn’t take much when the starting point was woefully low. I think being mindful of it and our struggle with our flesh and the principalities is a sign we belong to He who gives us strength… Our after shows His majesty…
And thank you for introducing us, Lynn! Beautiful living symbols of our transformation you give here, and yes, how they and the blessed gifts of change God works in us even in earth life make the soul hungry for that final perfect transformation.
Yes, Floyd, I think so too. It’s one of the ways God’s “Spirit testifies with our spirit(s) that we are born of God.” We care more intensely about these things, and when we see how God can work His changes in us, well, what a cause for gratitude and rejoicing! Indeed, “Our after shows His majesty”!
Thanks, Sylvie. Wow! Suddenly, I just thought of that song, “The Morning After”……not that I am recommending the Poseiden Adventure or anything (!), but I listened to the words just now and can actually apply them to heaven. 🙂 Pay DePoyan and I love to do that to contemporary music–reclaim it for the Kingdom.
Oops, that’s Pam, not Pay! =]
Great thought, Lynn: someday everything will be reclaimed for heaven. Ah, think of it!
Hi Sylvia! I am bogged down by the clutter too…cumbersome and heavy…To be free…free at last! I too desire to declutter …. love the pics of before and after….the same? or changed? Lets walk in the freedom of change….the after….<3
Yes, Kelly, sounds good to me! On pilgrimage together (hopefully traveling light!)
I keep learning from the word too about how whenever we keep bringing up the old stuff to God, He answers, “what are you talking about? I no longer see those things through the Blood…” It is such grace to know that God is personally doing the work in us, as we allow Him, and not waiting for us, or expecting us to redeem ourselves… What a gift that is! If He has removed those things as far as the east from the west, who are we to keep hanging onto them… I want to breathe that truth in.
Pam, what you say about bringing up old forgiven sin is so true. To hang onto that is like going back out to the dump to retrieve the garbage you put out last month and that got hauled far away, to bring it back home and place its sickly stink back inside your otherwise pleasant house, and then fret about its presence!
When I free write for five minutes, what’s in my mind doesn’t come across very clearly sometimes, and that seems to be the case here, because forgiven past sin really wasn’t what I was thinking about—yet it seems that’s how everyone reading it seemed to understand it. That’s really okay, though, because the truth in the comments is every bit as important as what I had on my mind at the time. What was that? I think I need to write another whole post to make it clearer. Meanwhile, the miscommunication has had strong value, I can see. So I’m just going to leave this all here as it is.
Blessings to you!
I think I was more answering a comment or two here, because I know that it is easy to worry if we are changing into who we want to be in Him… Don’t worry, I understood your post… 🙂
Thanks, Pam. I was seeing what seemed a general interpretation, and anyhow, that made for a good new blog post-starter! 🙂