throwback thursday - tomorrow's always fresh

throwinback: moi circa 2008

At the start of the week I lamented to my friend about some personal disappointments and bad choices I had recently made. Hardest of all, it seemed I was seeing old patterns and habits trying to rear their ugly heads and carve back out a niche for themselves in my days and attitudes and behaviors. She replied quite simply with this: "Tomorrow's fresh!"  And she was right.

Sometimes we really are stuck. Sometimes we only feel stuck.

About a thousand nine years ago I wrote about life on a different blog, before facebook or twitter or instagram. I scrolled around there today full of nostalgia. I read old entries about the things I was facing or dealing with or living out. I saw posts about stuff that I realize these years later I still grapple with. For every one of those, though, it seemed there was another that upon reflection showed me the ways I've gotten "unstuck" in the last decade.

Sometimes we only feel stuck. Sometimes we really are. But we can get unstuck. I believe that.

I'm so grateful for fresh tomorrows. I'm keenly aware that today was one.
Tomorrow will be, too.

Here's something I wrote - originally posted on a Wednesday in March of 2005 - about fresh tomorrows. I could've written it today because it still rings true. 

More than a quote from a movie

Inspired by old friends (and each of you know who you are), I write these thoughts. 

I am vividly aware today that the former name of this blog, "Tomorrow's Always Fresh", is more than just a snippet of dialogue from my favorite movie (which, by the way, is Anne of Green Gables, in case you haven't been around me for more than about two and a half minutes!). "Tomorrow's always fresh..." It's a nice thought that the day after this one comes clean and unused; that we can be more tomorrow than we were today; that we could choose a different path than the mucky one we may have been trodding. As pleasant and optimistic a thought that is, it is equally as challenging to believe.

How could the day after today be cleaner? Do you know the mess I made today? How could I measure taller than right now? Do you know how low I am? And as for the muck...my feet are caked in it. How do I shake that off?

Tough questions. Not much room for optimism when so much realism is involved. It is often said that a person's perception is their reality. Hm. So, what if I change my perception...of today...of tomorrow...of me? Then wouldn't my "realism" change? What if I decided that the perception I would adopt of today, tomorrow, me, EVERYTHING, was the way God perceives them? I know what my perception yields: a reality that leaves me never changing, never making improvements, never getting "unstuck". But His perception...His reality...is so very different. It yields a reality in which I am of so much worth that I am both bought and paid for; a reality that offers "strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow"; a reality in which I possess the ability to walk a lit path, to stand and not sink, even when I fall down; and a reality that tells me I was Someone's idea, planned all along, even though They "pre-knew" the dark days of my imperfection.

I want that perception. I want that reality.

How do I shake the muck from my boots? Well, I walk. Maybe I'll need to change the course, increase or slow the momentum, or stay on the same path and just walk it differently. But I have to walk. As I walk, the muck will dry and fall away.And I can't be afraid to step in other puddles, because, undoubtedly, I will. But what I must not do is stop walking.

Tomorrow is always fresh, but not because some movie says so. It is fresh because the One who made it created it as such. What does not change is Him. He can not change...but what He fashioned can.

"Behold, I make all things new."

Walk on, old friends. Walk on . . .