If we could take a mirror and go into all our inner world, what would we notice? Would we see someone who needs others’ permission to be, or who lets someone else define the moment for us? Do we see someone who is making life-giving choices, who is taking authority over the moments each of us are given?

The inner thoughts that tell us who we are and what to do influence our behaviour every day. They are so deeply entrenched that if we don’t stop them defining us we will take them to the grave. Our inner critic can be the strongest, hammering away at our initiative and self-confidence. Out of habit we choose simply to take the line of least resistance.

We so need to relearn to trust ourselves, to believe in more life-giving possibilities. Trusting ourselves or someone else is a work in progress. It doesn’t mean that nothing can go wrong. All human beings will fail. There will be parts of ourselves and others that we do not like. But humanity is beautiful within its brokenness – and we can still learn to love ourselves and others in the awareness that we will let each other down. We will need to learn to forgive and to grieve in order to trust again. To let ourselves and others off the hook is a life choice we need to fight for each day.

We need not remain defined by our past and lose our future moments because we are simply reacting to what happened to us before. Past expectations suck life out of our present moment, but as we believe who God says we are we find a new freedom to risk being more authentic and more free in the moment. Our moments are then not just reactive, but are rooted in the One who sees and loves us uniquely and who longs for us to be the special life-givers He intended us to be.