A Letter to the Past...
What would you tell the version of yourself who walked through yesterday’s trials? Step into a reflective journey of grace, resilience, and spiritual growth as we explore the lessons learned in hindsight and the unwavering faithfulness that brought us through. Read our latest post on Sunday Believers and join the conversation on faith, endurance, and God's guiding hand.
COURAGE AND STRENGTH
I hope you're having a wonderful Sunday! This week I found myself wrapping up correspondence from our brothers and sisters around the world, and I discovered a theme that seemed to permeate with most of them: getting over the past.
Life has a way of presenting us with heavy hurdles. Some have experienced the profound loss of a loved one through death, divorce, or the sudden uprooting of work and stability. Others find themselves unable to move beyond traumatic experiences, while some even suffer lingering health issues born from past hardships that actively prevent them from enjoying the present. We each have our own stories, and every single one of them is important. But did you know that most of our past thoughts, regrets, and old convictions prevent us from seeing what's ahead or moving forward? It can even create an invisible barrier in our relationship with God, making us feel as though we are tethered to yesterday when He is calling us into tomorrow.
If you’ve ever looked for guidance on how to fix this, you might share my frustration. I find a lot of information pertaining to "self-help" and emotional well-being out there to be, at times, a bit condescending. You encounter lecturers, psychologists, and even YouTubers speaking in hushed whispers—acting as if a raised decibel in their voice would cause an emotional meltdown or some catastrophic psychological eruption. They speak as if addressing a disgruntled mental patient. Needless to say, it annoys me. I don’t need someone walking on eggshells around my humanity; I simply want practical, real-world tools to understand how to get beyond negative, stifling, and self-destructive feelings from the past.
One method I’ve learned—and naturally, the title of this message—is "A Letter to the Past."
How do you actually write a letter to the past? It starts with radical honesty. Write whatever you need to get out of your system. Address the specific issues, heartbreaks, and turning points you faced at that point in time. Give yourself some grace and love. Forgive yourself for what you didn't know then, forgive others who played a part, and approach your former self with deep empathy and compassion. Keep writing until you feel you have dealt with it all. Then, pivot: explain to your past self what is about to happen, and how you intend to embrace positive change.
Some things you write may be hard, brutal, painful, and even frightening to put into words. But through the comfort and peace of Jesus Christ, you can find both the courage and the solace to confront whatever has held your heart, mind, and soul hostage for so long.
And here is the crucial final step: after you've written all you need to say to your past, destroy the letter—and with it, all the heavy feelings that came to the surface. Release them. Stay anchored in prayer, take things one day at a time, and remember the promise you made to your present self to finally move on.
So, if you’ve been praying for relief and a breakthrough, it’s time to put that prayer into action. Your first step is writing that letter. Release the weight, and keep moving forward.
I'm praying for you.
S.K. Caraway, Director
thesonyakarolfoundation.org
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you