Day 60 | Sydney Buchanan

This psalm has pulled something out of me that I have not experienced many times before, and that is genuine thankfulness for my past and for my journey. Fun fact about me: I really really really hate nostalgia. I hate the feeling of happy-sad memories, and I hate re-living emotions from my past. So, like any person who hates something, I avoid it at all costs. I avoid listening to music attached to memories. I avoid smelling things that remind me of people or things I used to know. I avoid having conversations with old friends about the “good ole days.” Why do you hate it so much, you ask? Because I have a hard time remembering the good emotions that I have experienced in life, and I vividly remember every heart-break, depression, and failure that I have experienced. Because of this, I rarely think about my past with thankfulness in my heart. But this psalm is helping me relate to my past in a way that I never have before.

In this psalm, we read Israel’s history of failing to remain faithful to God and how God was continually compassionate and forgiving. I don’t know about you, but I’m really relating to Israel in this. I have forgotten and ignored God time after time. And through it all, God is still God, and God is good. Sitting here, reflecting on the many times I have acted as if God had nothing to say to me, whether it be because of blatant disobedience or because of something traumatic I was experiencing in my life at the time, God has always been compassionate to me like he was to Israel. For that, I will praise him! So I guess what I am trying to say is, perhaps one of the means for trusting God more in our futures is remembering and noticing him in our pasts. God has been there through every failure and every heart-break. God has worked in miraculous ways in my heart, and sometimes I must see and feel the hurt of my past to fully experience his goodness now.

I hope to one day trust God more with my future, instead of repeating the cycle of forgetfulness. God is good. Although I hate to revisit the hard seasons of my life, I can see so evidently how God grew me into the person I am today through every season. And for that, I will praise him.‍