These days, everybody talks about trauma.
Everyone carries some kind of hurt or damage in their past.
And to be fair, most of it is real.
We’ve all seen disappointment. Some wounds go deep. Some scars will always stand as evidence on your skin. But not everything painful should be permanent.
Not every hard season needs a label.
And not every sadness deserves a whole chapter in your life story.
There’s a difference between grief and identity.
Between remembering and continuing to live there.
And that doesn’t mean I need to keep giving harmful people access.
Forgiveness and boundaries can coexist.
I could sit here and excavate every time someone let me down.
Every role model who disappointed.
Every mentor who turned out to be duplicitous.
But what good would that do?
The past can’t hear me anymore.
And here’s something I’ve had to learn the hard way:
If I’m always the victim, and the villain is always someone else…
I might be reading the story wrong.
Sometimes, the real damage didn’t come from them.
It’s how I carried what they did.
It’s what I refused to release.
It’s the slow rot of bitterness I let grow in my thoughts.
And while I can’t change what happened, I can choose what happens next.
I’ll never be as young as I was yesterday. Life only moves in one direction.
And I’ll never get back the time I spent staring in the rearview mirror.
So here’s a gentle nudge:
Mourn, yes.
Heal, please.
Set boundaries, absolutely.
But don’t ruminate over things you can’t change.
Look up.
Lean forward.
God placed your purpose ahead of you for a reason.
What’s ahead is worth the walk.
“Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”
— Philippians 3:13–14
\If this encouraged you, would you share it with one friend who might need it too?
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