Have you ever seen one of those time-lapse videos? It’s usually a couple of minutes long but it shows what happened over an extended period of time, like the construction of a new building or setting up for a major event.
It’s amazing how they can capture what took days or sometimes even years to accomplish…in just in a few minutes.

The picture you see is kinda like that.  That’s my husband & I telling our story to a group of people…some of whom we don’t even know their names.

We told them about the early years of our marriage. I told them that we couldn’t agree on anything including the time we fought at Best Buy about what TV we should get. He told them how there must have been something in the wedding cake called “fight-extreme-all-the-time-alate”.

The stuff that happened back THEN make us and our audience laugh…NOW.

But back then, the struggle was real.
Back then, I didn’t know I’d end up here…on a stage…telling people about those very moments.
Back then, it was my present…my reality…my life.
Back then, it was a crisis…it was hard…it was painful.
Back then, I thought my life was always going to be like that.

So, needless to say, there was a lot of stuff that happened between the back then…and the now.

A lot of advice seeking. A lot of “not saying everything I think” moments. A lot of learning to prefer and understand each other.

The “now” place we are at didn’t just happen. There were intentional, often daily choices we had to take to make it happen.

And I am glad we did.

Think about how differently some stories in scripture could have been.

What if Eve didn’t take the fruit? What if the armies of Israel quit after the 6th march around Jericho? What if that woman with the issue of blood talked herself out of pursuing Jesus?

Think about how differently some of our lives still could be.

Do we give up on pursuing our dreams because it is taking too long? Do we stop praying because nothing seems to be changing? Do we stop trying in our marriage because it is just too hard?
One day, sometime in the future, your current “now” will be a “back then”.

What are you doing with your “now”?

As the saying goes “Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” And maybe, it won’t just be you thanking yourself. One day, you might have someone tell you… “Because of hearing what you did back then, I am going to change my now.”

“We can be in our day what the heroes of faith were in their day – but remember, at that time, they did not know they were heroes.”   A. W. Tozer
~Anu