Yesterdays...

Time really flies doesn’t it?

It feels just like yesterday that I finally came to the full realization that there was never going to be a reunion of my broken family as a teen. If felt just like yesterday that I was proudly put on my graduation robes and fulfill my fathers’ long standing desire to see both his sons graduate. It felt just like yesterday that I wept silently next to my mother as she slept, exhausted from wondering the streets. I felt just like yesterday that my brother and I made a pact to never again fight against one another, but instead love each other the way brothers should.

Everything feels just like it was yesterday.

It felt just like yesterday that I first laid eyes on the first girl I would later come to admire from afar for years. It felt just like yesterday that I went through hell and back waiting in that abortion clinic just waiting and praying… for strength.. but mostly for forgiveness.. It felt just like yesterday that I read that poem, asking the love of my life to marry me. It felt just like yesterday that I found myself desolated and lonely, falling into the arms of another woman without really wanting to put up a fight.

The memories of yesterdays have a way of evolving over time.

The way you feel about things change as you do. The things you see in hindsight change as you move further ahead in life… The things that seems so significant & life changing don’t seem that big a deal than it first was, though you do know that once upon a time… once upon a time, it meant the world to you. But today, it’s just some memory you have, either because you keep it, or you just can’t get rid of it.

Time is a slippery thing.

It slips right through your fingers the minute you blink. It sprints right pass you when your gaze is fixed on life. The busier you are living your life, the faster time seems to past.  Ain’t that true for all of us? It makes yesterdays out of the things we do with our lives so quickly that before you know it….. you’ve got more yesterdays to recall than you are able to. Before you know it, chapters upon chapters of your life are scribed into your memory, whether you are ready or not.

There is no stopping it. I learned a long time ago that the time to live is now. The place to live is here. The person to love is the first one within your reach. There is no waiting till things are good before you start living. There is no such thing as waiting for everything to be well before you can be happy.  I learned that I will make mistakes, as others will too. I learned that I must forgive everyone of anything they ask forgiveness for because unforgiveness makes the yesterdays bitter.

I learned that though there is nothing you can do to change yesterday, there is always today to make up for it. There is always today to start doing things right again. Not always to right the wrongs, but to make the wrongs worth something in your life. I learned that when all else fails, when you are at your lowest - the thing that gives you strength & sustains you most, is the love you have today. And the thing that gives you courage to continuously put one foot in front of the other even though it weights a tonne, is the hope you have for the future.

It is said that to live with hope is to live life in the present as if that future promise is already true. How does a person live as if a future promise is already true? By looking at yesterday. Because yesterday is proof that in whatever you do, wherever you go, however you end up, dreams do come true, love does conquer, people do care, problems do have a solution, forgiveness is possible, wounds do heal, life does go on, miracles do happen.. and yes… God does exist.

So thank you yesterday.. for giving me hope for tomorrow. As the song goes:

I don’t know about tomorrow,
I just live from day to day,
I don’t borrow from the sunshine, for its skies may turn to gray,

I don’t worry for the future,
For I know what Jesus said,
And today I’ll walk beside him,
For he knows what lies ahead.

Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand.
But I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.

I don’t know about tomorrow,
It may bring me poverty,
But the one who feeds the sparrow,
Is the one who stands by me.