Three Ways to Leave the Little Things* Behind

Happy New Year!

Stepping into a fresh new year has always been inspiring.  There is a great psychological refreshing in the idea that one can simply close the door to a period of life that disappointed.  

Maybe this last year was a time of troubles or events that caused you pain.  Maybe you failed to achieve goals in your personal life, your job, and your relationships. Maybe it was simply the colossal stress, isolation, and loss we all experienced in the pandemic of 2020.  

But Fear Not! Get excited about your bright, shiny New Year. You have an opportunity for a Fresh Start. There’s no way you want to drag any of your old messes into your fresh, clean future!

Life happens

Imagine that you are sporting a favorite pair of tennis shoes and have embarked on a pleasant promenade through the park. You stroll, gazing at the glories of nature and breathing in fresh air and scents of trees and flowers.  Your spirit is refreshed.  Suddenly, you slip a bit and instead of fresh air and botanical aromas, you are assaulted with the odor of… dog poop.  Yes, you have trekked through some (mess.)  And it’s now all squished up into the soles of your shoes.  You find a stick or some leaves and try to clean the shoes but, alas, some of the mess is now stuck in the little grooves of the sole and is embedded into the fabric of the shoe.  You are not going to be able to make it “unhappen.”

Disgusted, you make your way home and are confronted with a dilemma:  

(1) Walk into your cozy home and track that mess onto your clean carpet? or (2) Discard the shoes outside, preventing even the potential for them to sully your clean home?

We all know the answer is (2): discard the shoes outside. Even if they are expensive and even if they are your favorite, you can’t risk bringing that mess into the house.  And you may have to banish them permanently, no matter what you paid for them or how much you loved them.

You can’t always fix it.

So how many of us have been going through life, trying to enjoy ourselves, only to step into some (mess)?  It wasn’t our fault, we didn’t see it coming, but “whoomp, there it is.”   In the past, we may have tried to clean things as best we could, but it didn’t always work because the mess had gotten way down deep and was hidden, only to squish out into our clean carpet.  Result: not only was our past messed up, but we had actually contaminated our own future by trying to hide/ ignore/ not deal with the mess. 

Many of us, myself included, tend to be blindsided by troubles --- like they were never supposed to happen to us.  But Life happens.  We all have troubles --- no matter what our Facebook posts might say. (Matthew 6:34, John 16:33) Some troubles we brought on ourselves through poor choices, and those troubles merit serious introspection and repentance. But what I’m talking about are woes we never saw coming: things that we never envisioned happening to us, things that were not our fault.  They glom onto us and stink up our lives and ruin the good things we had going on. We have been betrayed. These messes hurt us.  They anger us. They dirtied and ruined our picture of what life was supposed to be like. And worse, if not properly disposed of, these messes have the potential to contaminate and ruin our future, too. Yet even so, we can be reluctant to let go. We had a lot invested in those shoes.  We felt comfortable in them.  They were supposed to last longer. It was not supposed to end this way.

Apologies for the graphic illustration, but it shows us how we tend to stink up our lives by holding onto and re-living past experiences, hurts, and disappointments.  Perhaps with professional help there might be restoration for some shoes, but many of our messes are simply lost causes.  Deeply unpleasant things that --- if not decisively dealt with --- can cause us to perpetually live in the miasma of our fouled up past. 

You have to banish the shoes.

Realize the shoes (your past) will never be pristine again.  No matter how expensive they were, how comfortable they are --- you mustn’t wear them onto your clean carpet because the risk of contamination is too great.  Your future is worth way more than the shoes.  It’s the only way to guarantee that the mess of your past does not stain the clean carpet of your future life.  It’s the only way to ensure that the aroma of your future is fresh and sweet, not putrid.  Let them go. Banish those hurts, those memories and, yes, false friends. 

Value your Fresh Start and refuse to allow past contamination to cling to you.  Channel your inner Gandalf:  “Thou shalt not pass!!”

Three ways to guard your future from messes of the past:

[1]  Forgive.  We are commanded to forgive those who hurt us. (Colossians 3:13)  No, it doesn’t mean pretending the offense didn’t happen.  It did and it wounded.  But the act of will it takes to forgive means that you recognize that you are more worthy than the weight of the offense. Holding on to it would only hurt you, not the offender. Forgiving means you are no longer tied to that which hurt you. Don’t allow it to have power over you. Letting it go frees you. God has something better in mind for you.

[2]  Critique: What can I learn from this?  Troubles build endurance.  (James 1:2-4) Analyze, and gain strength and wisdom.

[3]  Practice intentional amnesia. Driving forward requires looking through the windshield, not at the rear view mirror. Forget and let go of the little things.  And they are all “little things” in the concept of the great totality of your life.  They are not worth ruining the future that God has granted you.  He has more shoes for you.  Constantly picking at the scab of a wound prevents it from healing.  Allow yourself to heal and move on. You are worth it!

Questions to help you have a Minty Fresh Future:

What past messes are stinking up your present? 

What can you do to make sure they do not contaminate your future?

*Disclaimer:  There are some losses, hurts, or betrayals that indeed are life- altering.  This essay is not intended to address or make light of those things, rather it is to encourage us to view most of our troubles ---those stinky, aggravating, things that foul up the harmoniousness of our daily lives --- as “little things.”