If you have it to do all over again, don't.

Some repeating messages are not just irony. Sometimes its an invisible guide trying to help you with a bit of friendly support - usually support you asked for but never expected to get. It repeats when it's especially important that you hear it and you've demonstrated a frustrating ability to miss the help for all your wild flailing. *points to self as wild flailer*

Friday night, while my sister was driving her search and recovery team through my shadowlands, I was busy sending up a flare to the powers that be. I was having one of the humble terrifying moments when I realized that as much as I could rationally explain my feelings and thoughts...it still wasn't alleviating any pain. I was in the throes of asking my higher power to save me, because I realized some fights seemed a little bit larger than me. Specifically I asked for guidance, any guidance. Something I could use in the meantime.

There was nothing initially.

Saturday, I was in a meeting with some folks I'm working on a project with and we somehow tumbled into a conversation about the air of heaviness looming just above our collective heads. At least, three of us did. We nodded and shared without sharing, some of what was weighing heavy on our spirits. All ghosts of things that once were. The fourth person in our conversation, a tough as nails hip shooter of a woman says,

"My sister once asked me, if I could be any age, what age would you choose? I told her the age I am right now. She asked me the question three more times, and each time I told her, the age I am right now. And when she asked why I wouldn't want to go back to a younger time, I told her because that would mean redoing somethings and I don't look back. History is a waste of my time."

History is a waste of my time.

The room fell silent. Finally, we all laughed at how awestruck everyone seemed by such a simple statement. I wrote it in my notebook, and it's been in the annals of my mind ever since. Saturday evening, I received an email about everything and nothing from an old friend. A line jumped out at me, as a natural complement. About her own frustrations she said, "rehashing the past, doesn't do a thing but hamper your ability to see any future."

Rehashing the past hampers your ability to see any future.

Two times this weekend, I was told something about looking back that had immediate impact.

This morning, as I wandered around my office looking for my favorite pottery apron as I got ready for class. I stumbled across the Bible my brother bought me for Chirstmas. I couldn't quite figure out why it was in my office and not with the family Bible in my bedroom. Out of curiosity (and a greater need), I opened it and sat on the carpet for a moment, leafing through some of the chapters that are most familiar to me. I found this verse:

Isaiah, Chapter 43, v. 18-19
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

Thanks Higher Power. I got it.