You Don’t Owe Your Past a Lifetime

Taped to the corner of my computer monitor is a faded sticky note that reads: “No matter how long you have lived one way, you are allowed to change everything. You don’t owe your past a lifetime.” I can’t remember where I first heard it or even when I stuck it there, but it’s been in my line of sight every single day – quietly waiting, like a seed pressed into the soil, unnoticed until the right season.

This morning, the words didn’t just sit on the page. They cracked open, like that seed finally breaking through the ground. The truth of them surged through me, not softly but with force as if a dam had given way and living water rushed into every dry corner of my mind, body, and soul.

The last four months have been a season of deep change for me. Moving to a new city, stepping into a new role, beginning graduate school at a different university, and continuing to do the hard work of healing have all stirred something inside. At times it has felt like the ground beneath me was shifting, and I wasn’t sure if I could find my footing again. But in the midst of all that, I’ve heard this quiet truth: I don’t owe my past a lifetime.

For a long time, I lived as though I did. I believed that if I had walked a path for years, I was required to stay on it, even if it no longer brought life. I thought loyalty to what was familiar was the same as faithfulness. But what I’m learning is that God doesn’t call us to stay bound to what keeps us small. He invites us into freedom. He reminds us that His mercies are new every morning, that beginnings are always possible, even after long seasons of living one way.

Letting go hasn’t been easy. Old patterns – perfectionism, striving for approval, measuring my worth by what I do – have clung tightly. Slowly, I’ve realized those patterns don’t fit who I’m becoming. They once helped me survive, but they cannot help me grow. The changes of these past months have peeled back those layers, and while it’s uncomfortable, it’s also liberating.

Starting again doesn’t erase the past. It honors it for what it was, thanks it for its lessons, and then releases it to make space for something new. God has been teaching me that change isn’t a betrayal of who I was, but an act of faith in who He is shaping me to be. Each day I get to take small steps into that truth: writing new words, building new friendships, creating rhythms of rest, and trusting that the story unfolding now is worth embracing.

So, if you find yourself carrying the weight of your past as though it’s a debt you’ll never be free from, hear this: you don’t owe your past a lifetime. You are free to change everything, even now, even here. God’s love makes room for it. And I am learning, day by day, to step into that freedom.