Turning Points

Years ago, I hurt my husband in a deeply profound way. There's very little in our lives that have stayed or look the same since that event. We moved. My job changed. We found a new home church. Priorities shifted. My calendar was filled with recovery meetings and counselling appointments.

These changes gave us the space and capacity to heal.

But these changes were much deeper than changing our postal code. True transformation was powered out of true repentance. I made a determined choice to pivot - moving away from my old ways of thinking and acting out, and experiencing forgiveness - the kind where you can never be the same.

We (now) measure our lives before and after that event. It has become a sacred marker in our life and marriage. There was life “before the event” and life “after”.

Sometimes we arrive at these turning points due to a series of decisions we ourselves have made – small incremental choices where we slowly compromise our faith or values. Other times we arrive at a sharp turning point due to no choice or fault of our own – like receiving a cancer diagnosis. I can testify that even in those types of turning points – the ones not caused by us, but the ones that God still permits, He can still offer peace there.

Thank God my life is not just my before and that He desired to move me out of that place. He loved me far too much to leave me there, even though it would involve pain and discomfort to uproot and make the necessary changes.

It reminds me of another major turning point that has shaped our entire world and certainly how we keep track of time – Before Christ (BC) and After Death (AD). The cross—changes everything.

It’s not always easy to look back at the events of our lives, especially when they are marked with poor choices and hurt we’ve caused others. Satan would much rather that I only see the bad in me – the mess that I was. But God? He loves restarts and points me back to the cross.

Only through His power and redeeming love, can good come from the broken and ugly. Because of the cross, His sacred marker, He gives the power to break the chains that hold us.

Life is punctuated by a series of twists and turns. These turning points are proof that we are still alive and that God is still at work weaving our story.

Song choice: Second Chance, Rend Collective (listen by using video link)

#ABCs