A charming past?

~ Today Joanne turns 39.

Two months after her stroke, she continues to fight.
Read below for details on how you can help!

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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation.
The old has passed away;
behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17

I pull out my clinky charm bracelet. I love its rattling sound. I love the memories it brings up.

But does it reflect who I am now?

Sometimes we let our past define us simply because it shaped us.
But those are two different things.

• Who we’ve been isn’t who we are.
• And who we are is but a shadow of who we can become.

With Christ, new creations are born every day in young bodies and old bodies alike. Those with a short past and those with a sordid one.

Joanne now has “stroke” as part of her past. We all have tokens—good and bad—from our past that we wear: “cancer” and “traveler” and “divorced” and “mother” and “lover” and “broken” and “believer” and on and on.

Those things changed us, to be sure.

But in the Lord’s hands, our charming and not-so-charming past is purified into a beautiful present.

And our charm bracelet is traded up for a crown of life (Revelation 2:10).

While my trinkets indicate who I once was:

• a tennis player
• a roller skater
• a kid at Opryland
• once a Sagittarius—am I now a Scorpio?

...and who I still am:

• a Florida lover
• a piano player
• a 4-Corner

...they can’t come close to reflecting who I one day will be:

• new-bodied
• pain-free
• and in the full presence of God.

Sounds completely charming to me.

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~ Do you have a charm bracelet?
Will you wear it today?
as a reminder to pray for Joanne when you hear its jingle?

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