Unveiling the Past

​How we view our pasts is different for each one of us. Some of us are blessed with families steeped in Christian faith, legacies built upon generations of believers in Christ. Others of us have lived with abuse in its various forms with the past a difficult place to visit. For the majority of us, our pasts are filled with a mix of memories, some happy, some not. We are shaped by those memories and experiences, and view life through the lens of what we remember and how we feel about what we’ve gone through.
 
Unveiling the Past by Kim Vogel Sawyer is a wonderful novel built around family secrets and mysteries, centered around newlyweds Sean Eagle and Meghan DeFord. Both have pain and loss in their pasts, and even though they share a deep faith and love for God, they each have issues to deal with. Their work as cold-case detectives brings them into contact with others who also have experienced painful pasts, and God uses two investigations to bring them to a place where they must make the choice between bitterness and resentment or forgiveness and healing.

Meghan comes from a home with a negligent mother and absentee father, and Sean tells her, “who your parents are doesn’t define who you are. Sure, you inherited your looks and some of your mannerisms from them, but a gene pool isn’t the only thing that makes you who you are. Your personal convictions, your desires and determination, and—mostly—your commitment to honor God with your life…those are what matter. If you ask God to mold you into the person He designed you to be, He will. You only have to listen for His voice and follow where He leads.”

This spoke so much to me, growing up with one parent who had a strong belief in God and the other who did not even want to talk about God, causing me to struggle with so many issues. I’m thankful for a mother who took me to church as a child, and Sunday school teachers and youth leaders who led me to Christ early on. However, despite coming to faith in Christ as a young person, I still had insecurities that kept me coming back to the place where I sought God to define who I would become and now am.

Meghan is fortunate in having a grandmother who prays for her “to become an honorable woman of faith.” As mothers who know the Lord, we have a responsibility to pray for our children to come to faith in Christ young and then walk with Him as they grow up, to become the men and women God designed them to be. If you’re blessed to be a grandmother, the need to pray for our children and their children becomes even greater, as we’ve already walked through many of the situations they’re facing and know just how much they need direction and wisdom from the Lord.

What about those who don’t have parents who raised them to know the Lord? It’s said that how we view our earthly parents forms how we view our heavenly Father, and if our past is filled with pain or bitterness toward one or both of our parents, we can view God with those same attitudes. One of the characters in Unveiling the Past advises, “God’s not people. He doesn’t leave us. He doesn’t let us down. Whatever He does is out of His deep love for us and His desire for us to live lives of joy. So don’t blame God for your father’s choices. God didn’t want that for you, either.”

Thank God, He doesn’t fail us as earthly parents can. He promises us in Hebrews 13:5b, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” and also in Psalm 94:14, “For the Lord will not forsake His people; He will not abandon His heritage.” Another character in the book quotes from I Corinthians 3:10-11: “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

If we’re blessed to have had one or both parents know the Lord and lead us to faith in Him, we need to continue to build on that foundation Paul speaks of. Please don’t miss where he warns us to “take care how [we] build upon it.” So many passages of Scripture exhort, teach, and advise us on how to live out our faith through our relationship with Christ. The same character mentioned above goes on to say that “our structures, our lives, are doomed to collapse unless we build on the cornerstone, Jesus Christ. With Him as our foundation, our lives become stronger, more purposeful, more fulfilled.”

As we think about our pasts, painful as it can sometimes be, we can bring those hurtful memories or situations to God, who lovingly wraps His arms around us and speaks into our wounded hearts. He can make something beautiful out of anyone’s life, no matter how broken or messed up our pasts have been.

If you aren’t in a good place with the Lord right now, or are struggling with relationships or effects from your past, let me leave you with another quote from this wonderful book: “It’s never too late to begin a relationship with God the Father through His Son, and it’s never too late to fix a human relationship that’s gone wrong.” May these words give you the encouragement you may need to deal with a difficult past.
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Blessings to you!
Lori 

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