“There is nothing sacred about ‘the first time around.’”

A thought by Henry Cloud, from his book, Changes That Heal (p. 50). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

I’m sure glad about that, aren’t you?

Henry says, “Because time is experience, we can influence any ‘past’ aspect of ourselves in the present. In the present, we can reach the hurting, lonely child of our past. The lonely child, the hurting child, the untrained child, and whoever else we ‘were’ is still alive; he or she is eternal and lives within us.

“Look at how you react to different situations. You respond to some situations like a rejected or hurt child. Often this child has not been reached by God’s grace and truth because he or she is outside of time. He or she is not brought into experience and is not allowed to grow up. People will tell someone to ‘stop acting like a child,’ truth without grace, but never give that person what he or she needs.”

He goes on, “When God says that he can redeem the time, he can actually make our past different. If someone missed out on important developmental aspects, just because that stage is past chronologically doesn’t mean that it cannot be grown up and transformed. We can all work through the trust issues of infancy, the boundary-setting issues of toddlerhood, the forgiveness issues of young childhood, the role issues of later childhood, and the separation issues of adolescence in our present adulthood. We can all grow up again.

“These aspects of the ‘image of God, our personalities are still there in their pristine form if because of injury they have been separated from time. Through bringing them into the light of experience in grace-giving relationships with our true selves, they can be matured and redeemed in God’s masterful process.”

He continues, “We have seen what happens when there is grace without truth, truth without grace, and time without either. When they all come together, we can for the first time have the true self loved and accepted, and through practice and experience, grow in the image of God.

“Grace, truth, and time working together can develop the kind of endurance James talks about: ‘My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing’ (James 1:2–4 NRSV).

God knows what He is doing, doesn’t He?

Yes, yes!