B is for BACK

I was a big fan of The Time Tunnel on TV. I've seen a few episodes recently on one of those classic channels and while it all looks a bit dated now, it's still a nice thought that you could go back in time and rewrite an important event or change an outcome in history. I suppose the Back to the Future movies weren't a lot different and we have a bit of an obsession with the past in a sort of 'what if?' way. Cher had a famous hit with 'If I could turn back time,' and I guess that some folks would have more they might want to change that others.

I'm not a great advocate of looking back. Yes, it's nice to reminisce, as I often do when I'm writing this blog, but I'm not the sort of person, who looks back and longs for an earlier time in my life to happen all over again, because it was a good experience or because I would like to change something in the past. My motto has always generally been 'the past has passed, today is the first day of the rest of my life.' I tend to live by the principle that everything that has happened was meant to and I'm at this point in my life, not only because of that but also because it's where God wants me to be. Still, it is nice at times to look back and remember incidents or moments that were milestones for one reason or another and that may have been pivotal in bringing me to my present state. Wife and I have known each other for a long time, but for almost the first twenty years of my life I had never seen her. Yet music was to bring us on a collision course that was only ever going to have one ending. I can still remember being pulled in, by a friend of mine who was a sound engineer, to play bass and acoustic guitar on a recording session for her group and although our paths crossed infrequently over the next couple of years, when we did 'bump' into one another, the chemistry was never far away. Looking back, it seems that we have always been together, yet for at least a third of our lives, the other person didn't exist.

It's much the same with the boys. We were talking with friends at the weekend, who are in a similar position to ourselves in that the children are all at university now and they were remarking that they couldn't remember a time when they didn't have a family nor indeed what they did before the family came along. And it's generally true, for while I have vivid memories of days spent with the lads, it's harder to think how we filled our evenings and weekends when they weren't around.

When mum and dad were both ill in the last stages of their lives, it left all of us with images of their sickness, their incapacity and their dependence on us. When they both passed away, those pictures of illness, old age, established routines and often painful or weary days, were difficult to erase from the mind and to remember days when we were dependent on them, when they enjoyed walks along the country roads or in the fields, when life was full of expectation and anticipation. No, it was hard to look back beyond the trauma and it still is, without a tinge of sadness at how our bodies age and fail to cope with the ravages of disease and time.

I can look back to childhood, to school days, to church, to friendships I should have pursued and others that didn't work out, to work, to decisions I should have made or others I shouldn't have considered, to things I should have said or to times when I shouldn't have spoken, to risks I might have taken and to opportunities that I shunned, to roads I could have taken and to routes I should have avoided. I guess you're the same. But I don't look back with any regret because for me to do so undermines my faith in a God who allows me free will but who ultimately is in control of my life.

When I look back, it's not hard to see the times when I didn't follow the path He would have desired and when I disappointed Him in the way I acted. I know that the wrong thoughts and actions that I have had over the years are not what He wants and while I can remember many of them, God doesn't. You see, that's the beauty of our relationship when I asked God to forgive me for the sins I committed that made Him unhappy. Not only does He forgive me, but He forgets them completely. That's right - He never looks back and though they remain in my head and the devil has a habit of reminding me, God has totally erased my past undoings. How do I know?Because the prophet Jeremiah, writing about the new covenant God would make through His Son, says 'For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.' Which brings me neatly back - to the present. God's gift - His Son. My future's secure.