The Evolving Mess

I’ve been thinking about snowballs.

Not the cute little ones you throw at somebody when you’re playing in the snow.

I mean the kind you start rolling.

At first, it’s small enough to fit in your hands. But you keep pushing it across the ground, and everywhere it goes, it picks up another layer.

A little more snow.
A little more weight.

Until eventually you look down and realize the thing you started carrying isn’t little anymore.

I think pain can work that way.

We go through something that hurts us, and we pick up a piece of it.

Remember this.
Don’t let that happen again.
Watch for this next time.

Then something else happens.
And we pick up another piece.
Then another.
And another.

We don’t do it because we want to be miserable.
We do it because those pieces feel like protection.

If I remember exactly how I got hurt before, maybe I’ll recognize it sooner next time.
If I remember the lie, maybe I’ll spot the next one.
If I remember what betrayal looked like, maybe I’ll never be blindsided again.
If I remember how it felt when everything fell apart, maybe I can stop it before it happens again.

So we keep collecting pieces.
And somewhere along the way, they begin sticking together.
A snowball.
Except now we aren’t just remembering our past.

We’re carrying it.

And that thing gets heavy.

The Strange Thing About Armor

For a long time, I thought remembering everything kept me safe.
Maybe you have too.

You remember the tone of voice.
The silence.
The look.
The thing someone said right before everything changed.

You remember what you missed the first time, and you promise yourself you’ll never miss it again.

Some of those lessons are important.

Healing does not mean becoming naive.
It doesn’t mean pretending something never happened.
It doesn’t mean forgetting the wisdom you gained walking through it.

But there is a difference between learning from something and carrying it everywhere you go.

Wisdom can walk beside you.
Pain demands to be carried.

The Protection That Couldn’t Protect Me

And here’s something I’m only beginning to understand.

Most of those pieces never protected me anyway.

I picked them up believing they would.

I remembered how one person lied because I thought knowing what that lie looked like would help me recognize the next one.

I remembered how someone betrayed me because I thought if I memorized every warning sign, I could make sure it never happened again.

I remembered the words, the behaviors, the circumstances, the things I missed and the things I wished I had noticed sooner.

I packed every one of them into the snowball.

Now I’ll know.
Now I’ll see it coming.
Now I’ll be safe.

Except life doesn’t work that way.

Because the next person wasn’t the same person.
The next relationship wasn’t the same relationship.
The next situation didn’t unfold the same way.

People lie differently.
People hurt us differently.
Loss comes differently.
Life falls apart differently.

The warning signs I had memorized from yesterday couldn’t guarantee what would happen tomorrow.

So there I was, dragging around years’ worth of evidence from things that had already happened, trying to use it as a shield against things that hadn’t happened yet.

And it couldn’t protect me.

I carried all that weight for protection that was never actually guaranteed.

That’s a hard realization.
Because if the snowball wasn’t keeping me safe, then what was it doing?

It was making me tired.
It was making me afraid.

Sometimes it made me look at today’s circumstances through yesterday’s eyes.

It taught me to search for familiar patterns even when I was dealing with completely different people and completely different situations.

And sometimes, instead of protecting me from pain, it kept the possibility of pain constantly in front of me.

That doesn’t mean the past taught me nothing.
It taught me plenty.

I can keep the wisdom.
I can have boundaries.
I can pay attention.
I can listen when something genuinely doesn’t feel right.

But I don’t need to drag every old piece behind me to do those things.

Because maybe real safety was never going to come from knowing every possible way I could be hurt.

Maybe real safety comes from knowing that whatever happens, I don’t have to face it alone.

God will be there.

And maybe that’s the difference between the protection I built for myself and the security I’m learning to find in Him.

One requires me to predict everything that might happen.
The other asks me to trust that I will not walk through it alone.

The Weight I Thought I Needed

Every painful thing added something to my snowball.

Every disappointment.
Every betrayal.
Every time I felt abandoned.
Every time I wondered what was wrong with me.
Every time I had to figure out how to survive something I never should have had to survive in the first place.

Roll.
Collect.
Protect.
Repeat.

Until eventually you can become so busy watching the snowball that you stop seeing the road in front of you.

Maybe God Isn’t Asking Me to Forget

For a long time, I think I misunderstood what letting go meant.

I thought letting go meant saying none of it mattered.
That the hurt wasn’t real.
That I should forget what happened and somehow become a person who never looks backward.

But maybe that isn’t what God is asking of me.

Maybe He is asking me to trust Him enough to put the snowball down.

To keep the wisdom…
without carrying every wound that taught it to me.

There are things in my past that changed me.
There are lessons I don’t want to unlearn.

But I don’t have to carry every painful piece of the story just because it once taught me how to survive.

What protected me in one season can become the weight that keeps me from walking freely into the next one.

Maybe healing isn’t forgetting.
Maybe healing is being able to remember without needing to pick it back up.

Putting It Down

I wish I could tell you there’s some magical moment when you hand the whole thing to God and never reach for it again.

That hasn’t been my experience.

Sometimes I put it down.
And then something scares me.
Something looks familiar.
Something brushes against an old wound.
And there I am, reaching for the snowball again.

Because carrying it is familiar.
Trusting God with it isn’t always.

So maybe surrender isn’t one giant moment.

Maybe sometimes it’s noticing what I’m doing and saying:

God, I’m picking this up again.
Help me put it back down.

I can remember without living there.
I can be wise without being afraid of everything.
I can acknowledge what happened without allowing it to decide what happens next.

And I can thank the version of me who collected those pieces because she was doing the best she knew to do.

She was trying to protect me.
But she doesn’t have to anymore.

God is teaching me another way to live.

With open hands.
With wisdom.
With boundaries.
With faith.
And with a whole lot less weight.

Maybe today I won’t get rid of the entire snowball.
Maybe I’ll just loosen my grip on one piece.
And maybe that’s enough for today.

☕ Morning Coffee Thought

What piece of your past are you still carrying because somewhere inside you, you believe you need it to stay safe?

Maybe you don’t need to forget it.
Maybe you just don’t need to carry it anymore.

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” — 1 Peter 5:7

☕ Right in the middle of the mess, we are learning that letting go doesn’t erase where we’ve been. It just frees our hands for where God is taking us next.