I tried writing an additional piece for roaming home the other day. It didn’t go so well as it was going back to early childhood and teen years where most of the dumb decision of my life were made and most of the traumatic events existed.I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really had to revisit the past to heal something in the present. The problem lies not in looking at it but in how it makes you feel. Each time you discover new regrets and although some insights are valuable, many are not because you start to do this wishing thing where you wish you had done something differently. Basically you can’t change what’s been done. Perhaps God can since he lives outside time as we know it.Specifically I know he can remove the pain attached to them but you don’t forget and what was sad or painful them will still be many years later even if they aren’t as triggering anymore.
It also has the habit of removing you from the present and placing you in some kind of limbo space where you have no power to effect either past or present.So why do we do it? What is the point of looking back? Some would say so that you can learn from your mistakes but it’s not really true. If you haven’t learnt from them when you were going through it then you won’t change by merely reflecting on them.Suffering through them is what brings change. There is a good psalm that says something like before I was afflicted I went astray.In regards to Jesus, in psalms it reads :he leaned obedience by the things he suffered. So suffering is where we learn our lessons not nearly reflecting on them.Another thing I dislike is that as you get older you develop frailties that can sadden you. I have found due to having strokes that I lack some of the elasticity I used to have in gathering thought’s together or even being a quick thinker like I was.The more tired I get the worse it becomes. I think the serenity prayer best deals with how to handle all of these times in one’s life.