I hate it when someone reminds me of my past. Face it though, everyone has a past, in some way or
another - It might not even be a horrendously bad past. But just a past that makes you want to cringe at the memories of it, curl up in a ball and whither with shame & guilt faster than a flower in the desert sun.
The past. What an ominous phrase. I look back at the things that I've done and I can't even believe it - Lord, what in the name of all things good and wholesome WAS I DOING? Was I not THINKING? Did listening to too much Avril Lavigne and Hellogoodbye somehow kill my brain cells? Watching too much anime destroy my thinking skills?! (Yeah, I used to listen to Avril Lavigne and watch anime. Don't judge me!)

Jokes and a deep comical sense of despair aside - Thinking about the past just makes you feel stupid. Regrets just seem to bubble up and resurface again. Guilt haunts all the memories of what you did - A sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. "God.. What if I hadn't done that. I wish I didn't. If only I knew what I was getting myself into."

Whenever someone reminds me of all the stupidly appalling choices I've made, the terrible things I've said, the atrocious things that I chose to do, I just want to scream at them to shut and up and leave my past alone. Or cry. Or curl up in a corner and wail to God about how useless I was. Or spend the entire week in misery with the regrets shooting arrows into my heart, and guilt weighing my soul down. Or migrate to Alaska where my memories can perhaps freeze and I somehow forget my foolishness. Maybe join a monastery and spend the rest of my life in penance for my sins.

But in Isaiah 43:18-19, God says..

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past."
I donno about you, but to me that sounds pretty much like an order from God. FORGET what you've done. FORGET all your stupidity. FORGET all those regrets. STOP DWELLING ON THE PAST. Stop dwelling on the past.
"See, I am doing a new thing!"
I love how there's an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence. It makes everything seem so amazingly bright with hope. God is doing a new thing! A new thing!
"Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"
Sometimes we don't perceive our blessings or how much we have actually grown from our mistakes and learning from the Great Teacher. We're so stuck on what we did that we forget what we have and can do through Christ who gives us strength, through Christ whose perfection shines through our weakness. We become blind to what we newly have, because we are blinded with what was.
"I am making a way in the wilderness, and streams in the wasteland."
Our Father can make a way when there is no way, bring life when there is no life, and make living waters flow in the place that is barren. And He is.

On the cross, Jesus took all my sins, diseases, wounds - And my past. He forgot it all. In Isaiah 43:12-13, He says, "I have revealed and saved and proclaimed... When I act, who can reverse it?”. He took my past, and no one can bring it back. No one can use it against me. No one can reverse His act of kindness and forgiveness. People can remind me of what I used to be, but no one can reverse who I now am in Christ.

My Beloved does not remember my past, so why should I?