What if You Could See Your Past from Heaven’s Perspective?
When I was little I wanted to be a kid’s TV presenter. As a young teenager I wanted to host a cooking show. A little while later, our church hosted a team from the OM ship, Logos Hope, and I decided I wanted to be a doctor and sail around the world. Fast forward a few years and my dream was to play clarinet and tenor sax for a West End show.
And then I met my future husband, fell in love, decided I couldn’t possibly leave the town we both lived in, and talked my way onto a teaching degree in the local university.
More than two decades later, I’ve had more websites than I can count on all my fingers and toes, a teaching degree I no longer use and a clarinet that only comes out in church on a Sunday. I founded a publishing company to write and publish nine books and last year, at Holy Spirit’s invitation, I closed a successful VA (virtual assistant) business to finally focus on fulfilling my purpose!
I’m 44 next week. It would be all too easy to look back on my life thus far and shake my head with regret at all the mis-steps.
I should have this life thing sorted by now and instead I feel like I’m only just getting started!
As we wrap up this month of exploring how to let go of the past, if you’ve ever looked back on your life with a sense that you’ve wasted too much time or missed God’s opportunities for you, this post is written with bucket loads of love, especially for you.
Why? Because nothing is ever wasted! You are doing life with an incredibly creative God, the Master of turning all things to good.
Yes, that’s easy for me to say from the safety of the other side of a keyboard. It might not feel so easy from where you are right now so allow me to give you some real life, practical examples:
One of the first websites I ever had was a personal blog called Heaven And El. It was a name given to me by a friend on Twitter at the time and was simply stories of some of the things God was doing on any given day. About five years ago I gave up the URL to focus on other projects.
But guess what? God took the name and redeemed it! How? Last year, in the lead up to my 43rd birthday, Holy Spirit gave me an idea for a mini-series on my podcast where I would hand the mic over to others to give them space to tell their stories. But what do we call it God?, I asked. The answer? “Heaven & El @ 43”
About eight years ago I wrote an email series called The Should Shover Challenge, aimed at helping people stop doing the things they think they should and instead, simply be who they were created to be. The series ran via my website for less than a year and then sat gathering dust on my hard drive until, God moved again …
Last year, Holy Spirit said it was time to write the Youier book with the second half of the book focussed on helping people be who they were created to be. It was then that I got the nudge to go back and look again at content I’d written for The Should Shover Challenge. With just a few minor tweaks, the entire email series found its way into the book.
In 2015 I set up a publishing company to publish my own fiction books. I sold a few books and then stopped writing fiction to focus on other projects.
And then in August 2020 God invited me to open up the publishing company to other authors and over the course of the next 21 months we published a whole six-part book series covering a range of mental health topics.
For the first decade of marriage I was a substitute teacher in local schools, juggling the work with my policeman husband’s shifts, allowing our three children to always have a parent at home. I gave up my teaching license in 2012 to focus on building my VA business.
In January 2019 I launched my first online education course for adults, taking the skills I’d learned as a teacher and applying them to a whole new arena.
From 2012 to 2021 I ran a successful VA business, helping other business owners wrangle email, build websites, customer service, marketing and all manner of other business related shenanigans.
Quite transparently, when Holy Spirit invited me to close that business to focus on Youier and my online community, The Blue House, I thought my years as a VA were wasted. That was until God gave me The Rainbow Room, a small-group coaching and support space inside The Blue House, focussed on equipping people to walk out their God-given promises.
Meaning? All the skills I’d learned as a VA could be passed on to others allowing The Rainbow Room to be as practical as it is inspirational!
And this is not just my story. Nothing is ever wasted in your life!
All the different pieces of your life are being woven together by the Master Creator into a beautiful, rich tapestry. God can turn all things to good because He loves you and you love Him.
As such, moving forward is less about letting go of the past and instead about asking God to help you see your life thus far from His perspective.
Some questions to help you get started:
God, what are the things in my past that are causing my feelings of regret?
What are the lies I’ve been believing about these things?
Show me these things from your perspective, from the perspective of heaven and all of eternity.
And if this idea of asking God questions is brand new to you, if you need some help hearing God for yourself, download a free e-copy of the Youier book, gifted to you by me and your friends in The Blue House. It starts by focussing on helping you hear God for yourself and is packed full of questions to explore with Him!
My prayer for you as you explore with Father, Son and Holy Spirit (or as I often refer to them, Papa, Jesus and Sam - yes, the story of the time Holy Spirit said, “you can call me Sam” is included in the book!) is that your heart may be opened to fresh, new conversations with God about your past, your present and your future. He’s a good God and He loves doing life with you!