Living In The Past

Last night, for some reason, became an evening of memories. As I sit in my mini driving with my wife and daughter, something triggers a past memory and we begin talking about college and a bit after. (Oh, by the way, by ‘mini’ I mean ‘mini-van.’ Sorry if I pretended to be cooler that I actually am. It does have a personalized license plate if that makes any difference.)

So we’re telling each other some things that we haven’t talked about in years and wondering if the choices we made were wise or not. Moments we would have changed - You know, asking what we would do differently if we had the choice. I talked about past girlfriends and the fact that my choice of majoring in theatre and minoring in music may not have been the most lucrative career path. I said, you know, if I had to do it differently I would have…and I would have been…you know how the story goes. We all do it. Maybe it’s a form of regret, maybe it’s just a way to make yourself feel better that you could have made a better choice. For some people, I’m sure that they would go back in a second.

But as I drove with my wife and my two and a half year old, I began to realize that everything I love and hold dearly has been an outcome of those decisions. Those horribly selfish, but sometimes good decisions have placed me where I am today. I’m not convinced that it’s all worked out like it was supposed to have, but what does that mean anyway? Who knows how things were supposed to have worked out? All I know is that I was lucky enough to land a ‘red-headed’ wife who, for some reason, loves the fire out of me. And because of that love, I have a little girl who thinks I am the greatest man on the planet. How could I want that to change? Just so that I could have majored in business and maybe have a few more bucks right now? No…I think I’ll trust that God, my God has created this place for me to be. I realize that my decisions are who I am. Good and bad. And I kind of like to think that God’s been fixing this life as I go through messing it all up. I’m sure he’s tired by now… “Scott, just make a good decision…just one…please…I’m tired here.”

You know, His choices determine where He is too. He could have chosen not to love me anymore. But that wouldn’t have been true to who he was either. So…I guess that I’ll live in the today…not the yesterdays…and hope to come to a place where the past doesn’t haunt me…it teaches me.
By the way…my daughter loves the mini. So, I guess that was a good decision.