Remember when?

Last weekend, as I prepared to watch the final high school football game of my journalism career, a gentlemen who knew my retirement plans asked me, "What was the best story you ever wrote?"

I thought a while and answered something about the one I did about Drew, Miss., but the truth is I have no idea. I should have answered, "the next one," except there is no next one now.

We spend an inordinate amount of time looking back. Yesterday was a difficult one for me because we always spent our Thanksgivings at my mom's house, and now there's no mom, there's no house and my past is swept away into fading memory.

In the 137th Psalm, the writer is doing some of that when he writes (from the Message), "Alongside Babylon's rivers we sat on the banks and we cried and cried, remembering the good old days in Zion. Alongside the quaking aspens we stacked our unplayed harps; That's where our captors demanded songs, sarcastic and mocking: 'Sing us a happy Zion song!'

"Oh hou could we ever sing God's song in this wasteland? If I ever forget you, Jerusalem, let my fingers wither and fall off like leaves."

The Israelites had, of course, been taken captive to Babyalonia, and they were thinking back to better days.

We often do the same; or at the least, I do. Thinking about what we did, what decisions we made, what factors led us to where we are now.

Often, if I am going to be depressed, that's the thing that gets me. Why did I....

The truth is, according to scripture, the best is yet to come. The Word is clear on this that whatever we've done, if we have a relationship with Jesus the Christ, the best is yet to come. We might go through a wasteland to get to the other side, but the best is yet to come. We might endure long nights of pain but the best is yet to come.

Reading the Shack for a second time reminded me of the wonderfulness of God's vision for us. We have been called to be in relationship with Him, and none of the rest of this stuff matters a whole lot.

That's what I should be reflecting on. This morning, on a cold, November day when I miss my mother, instead of looking back what I should be doing is looking ahead to that glorious day when I will be reunited with here.

So, I think I will.