You can be a success story...

I have been thinking about what it must be like to live a life through a witness relocation program. For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, I mean living a life on the run, a secret, new identity, a life of sum times fear and pain. Recently I have had the pain of watching some very close friends of mine go through what I would not wish on anyone.

Think for a moment about your life! Imagine your brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, all your family, all your friends. You have a complete social life, possibly a church life, and your work life. All the things you like to do, your favorite places to hang out.

Then some thing happens, some thing bad!! You just so happen to have been caught in the middle of it all, not by choice but by coincidence. The next thing you know you are forced to make decisions that you would have never in your wildest dreams thought you would have to make…All of a sudden life becomes full of pain and confusion. You then find your self not even being able to make your own choices. Some of the events that accrued made choices for you, and then you find your life being dictated and controlled by others. What is right any more? What is wrong? Even that is being dictated to you…

In the name of safety, good, protection, right, true, and possibly love, you are asked, told, and or forced to give up all you know, all you are, and maybe all you have.
Hence a new life begins!! A new identity, a new place, a secret life, you can not let any one know who you are. You must hide and cover up the past, or create a new past to keep people from looking at you wrong or finding out the truth.

All the while the pain of separation of all you knew and are is cutting you like a knife.

I don’t know, maybe at one point it just becomes numb and you won’t be able to feel it any more.

I am sure at some point you would have the following questions running through your mind.
What am I doing??
How long can I keep going on this way??
When will it stop??
Why can’t it just be like it was before??

Have you imagined it? What would it be like? Could you live a life like that? I’m sure they said the same thing (No way that could be hell)!! But there are countless people who find them selves in those circumstances. Living in that life! Fearing the past, running from it, living a lie…. Sad but at one point it becomes truth to them. The new life that is…

There is an expression that says “you can not run from the past, it will always catch up with you”.
Another one says “you can not hide from the past, it will always find you”!

I believe in God and in the power of God!! I have seen what he can do with some ones past.
Our past helps make who we are in the in the future. While not always good, it can be turned for good.Take for example the story of Joseph in the bible. His brother’s sale him into slavery, he then goes to prison for doing what is right. In the end he becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt next to pharaoh.He told his brother’s “what you meant for harm, God turned for good”!

What an amazing story of forgiveness, a story of perfect focus. Joseph never ran or hid from his past, he never focused on the circumstances surrounding his past but always put his trust and focus on God. Who is the author and the finisher of our life and can take any thing we give him and make it a success story.

Give God your past, give him your future! He knows who are, he knows where you’ve been.

He wants to make you a success story!!