Did you ever wish you could go back in time?

I have. I've  wished I could go back in time because there are a number of events I'd like the opportunity to have changed.

I'd like to go back in time to the early 1960's when in grade school I was NOT selected to participate in the "Vespers". Vespers is from a Greek word meaning "evening", and this was a cherished annual event in my hometown when all the children from the city would converge in the Convention Center one evening of the year (at Christmas) and sing for all their families. I was not selected one year and never sang aloud again.

I'd like to go back in time to the early or mid 1960's when, with my parents at a big company holiday party at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, my parents made me get up and dance with my sister. I was so traumatized it remains to this day the source of a life-long phobia of dancing. Only now, in my 60's, am I trying to overcoming it.

I'd like to go back in time to the 1950s and find my Dad and tell him to stop smoking because in 1987 he'd die of lung cancer and I'd like to prevent that.

I'd like to go back to 1970 and not meet the girl who became my wife in 1976 because in 1998 she divorced me saying only "I did not meet her needs". 

I'd like to go back to February, 1979 and actually MAKE the trip to Minot, ND from Dayton, OH to see the total solar eclipse. I had opted NOT to take the trip due to fear of the cold weather, but on eclipse day in Minot it was above freezing and crystal-clear! To this day I have not witnessed a total solar eclipse.

I'd like to go back to any year between 1969 and 1972 and go to Cape Canaveral, FL to witness a Saturn V launch. I missed them all and there is nothing comparable to a Saturn V launch and the last one was in 1972!

I'd like to go back to 1987 and arrange it so that I heard about my Dad's ill-health and eminent death in plenty of time to have gone to the hospital to say my goodbyes. As it happened, my Mom intentionally did not tell me my Dad was dying even though I lived only 60 miles away at the time.  It was the usual behavior for my Mom to "protect me", as she did all my life, and as a result I did not get to say goodbye to my Dad.

I'd like to go back in time to 2007 and stop my sister from moving my aging Mom to Florida with her where she (my sister) arranged to prevent me from receiving my half of our only inheritance when my Mom died in 2012. Now my sister will never know that I planned, unbeknownst to her, to let her keep my half of our inheritance anyway as my gift to her.  Instead, our relationship is ruined. 

There are other dates I'd go back to if I could to change the events which led to an undesired result in my life. But I can't. None of us can. Indeed we should not be so concerned. Scripture tells us:

"Stop dwelling on past events and brooding over times gone by; I am doing something new; it's springing up — can't you see it?" (Isaiah 43:18-19)

"Whoever therefore is in the Mashiyach is a new creature: old things have passed away" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

We can't dwell upon our past for our past included many factors and decisions at a time when we did not know YHWH as we do now. YHWH, fortunately, does not hold that against us.  The important thing is that once we do see the light and know YHWH, we can now make decisions to proceed from this point, using new eyes and new wisdom.

I can't change my past. I can't go back in time and make changes. But I can let go. Some of the things in my past were my fault as they were my decisions.  Some only impacted me because of the decisions of others. In either case, I can't change it.  But I can grow from it and proceed forward from here for the old things have passed away.