In this episode:

Life's rearview mirror frames our regrets for things we have done—failed relationships, financial blunders, poor decisions, and situations we wish we could do over. It also frames the things done to us—circumstances that were outside of our control such as abuse, a troubled home life, taunting from bullies, racial discrimination, and abandonment. If we get stuck on that view, it could hinder us from seeing the wonderful future God has ahead of us!

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Inspired Life
It’s easy to dwell on our past pain or mistakes until we’re so stuck looking in the rearview mirror we have trouble moving forward. In fact, sometimes it causes us move backwards.
For example, when the cruel words and actions of someone from the past play like a recording in your brain, you’re more likely to base your decisions on that recording if you dwell on them.
When a decision about applying for a new job or going back to school comes along, you back away from the opportunity and concede to hopeless lies. “You’ll never amount to anything but a loser,” you hear in your head.
Have you ever noticed that backing up a car takes more work than driving forward?
My husband worked for a cranberry grower for more than a decade, and during harvest I had the opportunity to work in the fields.
Usually, I received jobs that required physical labor, but no skill in handling equipment. One harvest day they were short a man and asked me to drive the vehicle we called the one-ton. I gulped, but “manned” up for the job.
For those who are truck illiterate like me, a one-ton is a large truck cab with a small dump truck back end. It has big dual wheels on the back and it’s a beast of a vehicle if, like me, you’re a woman with an aversion to big vehicles.
My job was to haul the load of stringy grass and weeds that came off the waste elevator, dump it out in a compost pile by the woods, then drive back to the harvest area and back the truck up a long, narrow sand dike with water ditches on both sides.
No problem. At least it wasn’t a problem when the guys did it.
Once I got in the truck, I knew I was in trouble. First, a truck like a one-ton has no window behind the seat—it’s covered by the dump truck on the back. I usually look over my shoulder when I back up a vehicle.
“Just use your mirrors,” my husband said. “I’ll be back there directing when you get closer. Watch my hand signals and you’ll know when to stop.”
I tried backing with those mirrors. I really did. I crawled backwards at a pace a sloth could have outrun. Unfortunately, I’d have run over any sloth that happened to race me because I swerved back and forth in a path that left tire tracks like rickrack in the sand.
Eventually, I gave up, opened the cab door and hung out the side with one hand on the steering wheel, the other clinging to the door handle to keep myself from plunging into the ditch as I looked over my left shoulder.
I got the truck to where it had to be, but I didn’t need a rearview mirror to get a clear view of the men snickering by the harvest machine. Forty-five minutes later, I got to do the same thing all over again.

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