"From now on I will tell you about new things that will happen."

I hate caffeine...I've been up all night because I enjoyed some Diet Dr. Pepper for dinner. I hate not sleeping for the obvious reasons, but my biggest problem is that I do all my "best" thinking while I lay awake every hour through the night....and by "best" I mean WORST!!! I dwell and worry and even sometimes get angry as I think on things that I shouldn't but don't have the clarity to stop thinking about. Well tonight my thoughts went to one of the usuals, fearing that we trust technology too much with our memories. We have a backup hard drive which houses ALL of our digital photos. From Brock and my first Christmas married in 2003 to the birth of both our children to our move across the country. All our friends, explorations, places we've been, our family reunions, our children's whole lives, other people's children's lives, etc. I lay there thinking, in one second, in a fire or theft or accident of some kind we could lose all of it! It's VERY unsettling to me to think about that. My thoughts then go to this blog. If I were to lose this blog, SO MANY memories will be lost! I have chronicled many things in our life on here, (though there is a MAJOR time gap in the recent past), including Reagan's whole beginning which I NEVER want to forget (though not ideal circumstances). Up until I went MIA on here a few years ago, I chronicled so much of her little life. And here I am, sending her to Kindergarten every day and my thoughts are regularly going to my memories of the last 6 years and I lay there thinking how in one second we could lose the bits of it that were documented.
So I grabbed my phone to "just check" on the blog and make sure all is safe and sound so I could move on with my fears, (ha ha). I type in the address....."Blog does not exist".....I pray calmly, heart starting to pound....I type it in again thinking, in my half asleep stupor I must have typed it in incorrectly and the letters are just so small at 4am! "Blog does not exist"....I am fully awake now and starting to really panic. I actually start pleading with the Lord....I "calmly" jerk myself out of bed and "calmly" run downstairs to the computer and type it in...same. Now my prayers and pleadings are audible and I don't even care if I wake all 5 sleeping adults and 3 sleeping children in this house, (explaining that is a WHOLE other blog post!). I go to my email and search for it. I find an email with the address and a HUGE relief hits me as I see that I typed the address wrong....my panic subsides and here I sit.
My thoughts are now on 2 things, and I'm mad at myself for it....First, if I were to lose all these memories, how is it that I feel like my life would be over?! I feel like I'd be devastated like I lost my whole life. (As if the only link to my memories is in that little odd shaped black box called an external hard drive). And secondly, I think of the words "Blog does not exist." I was in a panic like if the site didn't come up, that meant my past doesn't exist?!
Jesus gently reminds me that first of all, He should be my focus at all times. He reminds me to keep an eternal focus. Not that having and keeping memories in the form of pictures, videos, blogs, etc. is wrong, but hanging onto them so tightly that you forget that this is NOT our home!
I love thinking back on all the things that God has done in my life, but I know that I am not to get lost in the past things because the Lord says, "from now on I will tell you about new things that will happen."

Isaiah 48:6-7 says:

You have heard me tell you those things.
Think about all of them.
Won't you admit they have taken place?
"From now on I will tell you about new things that will happen.
I have not made them known to you before.
Those things are taking place right now.
They did not happen long ago.
You have not heard of them before today.
So you can't say,
'Oh, yes. I already knew about them.'

Thank you Jesus for ALL you have done in the past, but keep me FOCUSED on what you are doing NOW and in times coming.

I love reminiscing as much as anyone else, but I don't want to cling to the past so tightly, especially to the good things, because I can get stuck there and not see what the Lord is wanting to do in and through me right now. I lose sight of visions and promises He's given me for the future. God certainly doesn't want us to forget about the past, He tells us in scripture to remember what He has done....but we should also be looking to the new things He is doing and remembering that we're not here on earth to get comfortable. We're here to be about our Father's business, not holding tightly to this earth....even the memories of our time here.

Matthew 6:19-21 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

I want my heart to be ever focused on heaven, on my Father's work here on earth and having love for His people and His church.