Leave the past behind and look to the future full of hope and love

Many of us are so busy trying to move forward with our lives that we rarely take a moment to slow down. I know that I’m often like that. So when I was on holiday the other week, that’s exactly what I did.

I slowed down and spent time wandering along the beach and taking time to think about life, the universe and everything.

And as I thought, I realised that like many other folk I tend to ruminate on the things I have got wrong and the things I could have done better. As well as all the things I had to or planned to do.

And decided I wasn’t going to do that while I was on holiday.

I was going to make a positive effort to throw out any negative thoughts by thinking positively about them.

Because I kept them floating around.

And the first step I took to letting go of them was to write them down so I could get on with enjoying my holiday and go back to them later. But only if I felt like it. Which I did, and discovered that most of them weren’t a problem.

For they were in past and, yes, there were things I could still do to help repair any damage that had been done but I couldn’t change what had happened.

What I could do, however, was be a bit smarter about preventing similar situations happening in the first place.

And be a bit more like the person that I knew God had made me, as He made all of us, to be – loving, caring and compassionate...just like Him.

By Reverend Lindsay Turnbull, of Trinity Parish Church, Hamilton