By Pastor Susan Young, Our Father’s House
Contributing Writer
Today I want to get real with you by sharing a memory from over 40 years ago that was affecting me today. Maybe you have your own memory that you can begin to untangle yourself from. You see, I hate grocery shopping. Or rather, I hated grocery shopping until this happened.
Grocery shopping invoked memories of a worried single mother with two littles and a calculator wanting to buy something they wanted but also having to buy what they needed first.
Necessities like ingredients for casseroles that stretched a dollar and filled a belly. Crock pot things that would simmer while I worked meant that sometimes the Oreos and the Fruit Loops had to wait for another time.
Then, after we got to a better place financially, there was the camaraderie of grocery shopping together, the negotiations between Oreos and Chips Ahoy, and Frosted Flakes and Cap’n Crunch and well, grocery shopping these days held too many memories good and bad and it became an unwanted chore. Groceries bags weren’t the only bags I carried out of the store.
Today was different. Today, as I was walking to that deli counter and buying $10.99 a pound lunch meat and coffee creamer of my choice, holding my phone with a grocery list, suddenly the Holy Spirit came sweeping in as thoughts.
Do you remember when every single item you put in that cart had to have an amount attached to it? Oh, I watched you look at the price and I heard you mutter about inflation but it didn’t knock you off your game. You made the best of the situation.
Do you remember when going to the grocery store meant wrangling littles, endless questions of “Mommy can we get this, can we get that?” and getting hit by the cart because a little wanted to steer? Oh, I saw you smile at that mom as you walked past her today, but your memories were fond weren’t they?
Maybe it’s time to deal with the grocery store trigger. You know full well that we hear and see in context of our triggers and well, maybe those triggers are long gone but still attached to you?
Would you consider giving up this trigger? Try it, loosen up, breathe, realize that was years ago. See how far you’ve come? It’s now you and the grocery cart and the only thing you are battling is outdated expired memories.
Walking the aisles I had to repent for the attitude. I had to recognize the tense body language and the urge to drop the cart and leave.
What memory has been triggering you? The Bible has a lot to say about forgetting the things that cannot be changed and pressing forward to your future.
God told the Israelites when they had been wandering around in a circle, “You have been wandering around in this hill country long enough; turn to the north,” Deuteronomy 2:3.
God tells us that with him he will see us through to a new way of life, “But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland,”
Isaiah 43:18-19.
Paul tells us we aren’t where we need to be yet, but one thing is for sure we need to bury the past behind us and look towards the future, “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”
Philippians 3:13-14.
Beloved, I pray you have an encounter with the Holy Spirit. I pray you are able to let go of those things that were stressful from the past and look towards the future. Those triggers that kept you reliving things that have passed must leave in the mighty name of Jesus.
