The Suitcase That Was Not Fully Closed

Sometimes the clearest evidence that you have grown is not that your past disappears. It is that your past returns and discovers that it can no longer move you the way it once did.

Old relationships may resurface. Familiar patterns may present themselves again. People who once had access to your emotions may watch your progression from a distance. Situations that once would have consumed your attention may suddenly appear much smaller beside the life you are now building.

And there comes a moment when you have to decide:

Will I return to what I have already outgrown, or will I remain focused on where God is taking me?

Growth does not require you to pretend the past never happened. Your past may contain some of your greatest lessons, deepest wounds, spiritual experiences, and most powerful testimony.

But remembering where you came from is different from returning there.

You can acknowledge who you were without becoming that person again.

You can tell the truth about what happened without allowing it to govern what happens next.

You can be questioned about your journey without questioning whether you deserved to make it out.

That is what becoming unmuted has increasingly meant to me.

It isn't simply finding the courage to speak about what happened.

It is remaining steadfast once you have spoken.

People may have opinions about your journey. They may question what you believed, why you stayed, why you left, how you survived, or why you chose to tell the story at all.

Let people have their opinions.

Listen when there is wisdom worth receiving. Grow where growth is necessary. But don't surrender your assignment simply because somebody else would have written your story differently.

God did not call them to live your life.

You still have work to do.

You still have goals to reach.

You still have doors to walk through.

You still have seasons you haven't seen yet.

Stay on task. Stay on the mission. Be not dismayed.

Perhaps the greatest victory isn't that you were never attacked, challenged, disappointed, or brought into difficult waters.

Perhaps the victory is that after everything that tried to silence you, you still found your voice.

And now you know what to do with it.

Keep ascending.

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord...”
1 Corinthians 15:58 KJV