Can the way I see my past change?
The Pain Did Not Change. I Did.
The same memories can look different as a person grows. I’m beginning to see how grace has changed the man looking back.
Rick Hesse ·
I can look back at something today and see it differently from the way I saw it twenty or thirty years ago.
The event is still part of my life. The person remembering it has continued to grow.
For years, fear, anger, and shame shaped the way I understood some of my own experiences. I judged myself harshly. I carried questions about God and about what my failures meant.
I still remember those things. Yet some of those same memories now sit within a different understanding of Jesus, mercy, and my own life.
I think about broken pieces of glass gathered into a mosaic. The pieces remain visible. Light can reach them in a different way.
That image helps me think about what I’m beginning to see. I can recognize something grace has formed in me without saying that the hurt itself was good.
Pain is personal. I cannot measure somebody else’s suffering against mine. I cannot decide when another person should feel grateful, or how they ought to understand what happened to them.
I can speak about my own experience.
My relationship with Jesus has lasted through decades of questions, failure, and change. Looking back, I see that my understanding of Him was changing along with my understanding of myself.
There is still healing to do. There are things I do not understand. Some days I feel the old judgments rise again.
But they are no longer the only way I know how to see.
That is the reflection I want to preserve: the past remained, and the man looking back was changing.
This is what I’m beginning to see in my own life. You’re welcome to take your time with it.
Let's talk about this
I have walked with Jesus for 50 years, and I am still learning. Some of my deepest lessons have come through failure and pain, where I have come to see His grace and mercy more clearly.
How does this connect with your own life or relationship with Jesus? Your questions and experiences are welcome, even when you see things differently.
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