This past week I was listening to a podcast by Beth Moore when she made a stop-short-wait statement: “Nostalgia can be our worst enemy.”
Whoa! I thought broccoli was my deepest, darkest enemy, at least according to one of my granddaughters. How can a “sentimentality or sadness for the past, for a particular period or place with positive associations” be my worst enemy? (That definition is given in a number of different places if you search.)
The “good ole days” is a common phrase used to describe nostalgia in a different way, that longing for the hazy, lazy days of youth or even just say, oh, pre-Covid. Of course, we often use that phrase in a rather self-mocking manner to cover over a heart and soul that are weary and worn down. There’s just too much. Fill in the blank on that one.
We continue to be in a time when we are tugged every which way, not sure who or what to believe. We long for the times when we could go where we wanted, in the manner we wished, and not be afraid we would become ill or we would cause someone we dearly love to become ill. Our children are struggling with changes we don’t know how to help them adapt to, losses which seem teenage-monumental, and near-constant disruption.
Yet, here we are. We have to figure out how to go forward. Here we are. This has happened. Next.
Nostalgia in this case can be our worst enemy because it can trap us in longing for something that will never be again. Like the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt, we long for the “leeks and cucumbers” even while we know going back is not only impossible but unhealthy to long for.
Pause. Breathe. Rest. Take the odd gifts we have been given, determine what from the past should never be reclaimed. Listen for the Voice that tells you the right path to take, the Voice that was too often drowned out before: the Holy Spirit. Wait. Focus. Acknowledge what is and what isn’t.
Look forward. What’s your Next?
Just Sayin' 