I remember in high school making fun of one of the teachers that had a larger than average booty. She was easy for me to make fun of because everyone else was doing it, and she had written me up for something I was not a part of. I was innocent, but she did not believe me or give me a chance to explain.
I knew at the time that making fun of her felt wrong and yet so right at the same time.
Years later after I finished my master’s degree, I was given my first assignment at a small community college a good distance from that small town where I attended high school. I was scheduled to teach a night course in the summer for extra pay (as I waited for August to arrive so that I could fulfill my new position).
I knew that it was important that I make a good first impression with the staff at this school. I was assigned a teacher to show me the ropes.
To my extreme surprise, the teacher that greeted me was none other than “Mrs. Moody with the big booty.”
I was flooded with memories of the things I had said about her. I remembered one time when she stepped around a corner in our high school and we were pretty sure she had heard everything that was being said about her.
Now, she was my first link to making a good impression at this college, and my heart was beating out of my chest. I wondered if she recognized me even though my last name had changed.
Thankfully, she did not seem to have any memory of our previous encounter, and she was much kinder than I had remembered. She could not have been a better host, and I was filled with remorse for making fun of her back when weight was not a struggle for me. She no longer had a big booty. She was very thin.
We were now official colleagues. How did that happen? In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined how this scenario would play out even if I had tried.
Isaiah 43:18-19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
I have lots of “former” things that I can remember with little or no effort. These things can make me feel horrible about myself, insecure, and they can even cause anxiety.
I wish my motherly instincts had been more refined before I started impacting the tiny humans that made their home in my body for a few months.
I wish I had not gone through a divorce.
I wish that I had not let my emotions write others off because of small offenses.
And I wish that I had never said those things about Mrs. Moody with the big booty.
However, if I try hard to think of how I could change the things I have done and I cannot come up with one way to do that.
What is done, is done.
I can apologize to those I have hurt, and I can ask God for forgiveness; but I cannot change anything about my past mistakes and outright failures.
God has been teaching me that the best way to make up for my messes is to become what He wants me to be now (to become the person He created me to be).
He knows me better than anyone else, and what He wants for me is for me is something different than spouting out everything that pops into my head and regretting it later or believing lies about myself and others.
He wants to unveil my very best life. Isaiah 43:18-19 makes me want to do a happy dance because I am tired of living in the wasteland.
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