Five years yet yesterday

Today marks my Dad's fifth "Heaven day" as we like to call it! We celebrated him today. The kids wrote and letter and I got a balloon...we attached the letter and sent it up to Papa! The kids had so much fun doing that. They said God would carry it all the way up to him :) I love my children's hearts. Fortunately they didn't see the balloon get caught on a tree right over our ridge...and we didn't feel the need to make that known..lol. Five years....wow! So much has happened in five years. I took my dad's death hard....but I was silent about it. But then it came out in so many other ways....some good, some definitely not good. I cringe at the mistakes I have made...not only to myself but to others and to my faith. There are times I find myself lost in thoughts of what ifs, and how comes and it literally makes me sick. But today on this fifth anniversary of my dad's heaven day...I am accepting all the changes that have come, letting go of all I have lost, and forgiving myself for not doing the things I knew to do and doing the things I knew not to do...hmm, sound familiar. I could honestly spend the rest of my life hating myself for not being better....I could have been better, but I wasn't. I heard recently the past is where the lessons are learned and the future is where the lessons are applied. I think I have grieved long enough, been sad long enough, and hated myself for long enough. Tomorrow is my future. I will apply everything I have learned over the past five years to living the next five years to the best I can do holding firmly onto my Lord while He does the rest. Grace is given, not earned, it does not come freely, but when given it can breathe a breath of life into a soul that was so lost. We can never go back or we will burn to ashes, we must go forward striving everyday for our best....the past has nothing for us, the future holds everything. I will rise because God gives me the strength, I will love, because God first loved me, and I will forgive, because God forgave me, forgives me, and will always do so as long as I seek Him first in all I do. How could I hold forgiveness from myself or anyone for that matter when the only one who has ever had any true reason not to forgive, forgives unconditionally and then forgets it! What an amazing God we serve. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Phil.3:14