You can't fake yourself into being okay with what happened. But you can decide that the one who hurt you doesn't get to decide what you do with your memories. Your life can be a graceful combination of beautiful and painful.

No need to bend under the weight of past mistakes. That kind of bending breaks us.

We are amazingly similar to the children of Israel. We spend half our lives looking back at our own Egypt with selective memories, longing to have our comfort zone back. Then we spend the other half wishing our days away for a dreamy future in our own promised land.

You can't go on this grand adventure with God and keep your old way of thinking.

It's necessary for you to not let pain rewrite your memories, and it's absolutely necessary not to let pain ruin your future.

God is who He says He is, and He will do what He says He will do. But to partner with Him in His work of transformation in our lives, we must seek Him with all our hearts. It's our choice whether we stay stuck in our hurt or get renewed in our hearts.

No matter what wrong thing has happened, there is a right next thing to do.

Negative self-talk was a rejection from my past that I had allowed to settle into the core of who I am.

had been massively damaged. There was repentance. There was forgiveness. There was an acceptance that, just because something wasn't right for a long time, it doesn't mean it can't be made right over time. There was some healing we both did individually. And then there was the decision that it was time to heal together. There was a beautiful vow renewal.

We can't go ahead with God to new and exciting places if we're spending too much time looking back. We must leave our past behind, draw a line in the sand, and determine to proceed forward with God.

I've felt the heavy weight of regret and I don't want to return there.

We've survived what we feared. But can we survive the remembering? Memories are both our greatest treasures and our greatest sorrows.