Rewriting the Past and Looking to the Future

I was chatting with an old friend this afternoon about what life would have looked like if just one thing had gone differently. Now this was an old friend. We were classmates up until 4th grade when he moved away. He moved back to the area a few years later, but didn't return to my school. I don't know that I had seen him since he left until Saturday night at the wedding. At any rate, we reconnected on Saturday night (see yesterday's post) and have been chatting off and on since then. Today he posed the thought: "I wonder what would have happened if I had never moved away." I first suggested a fairly realistic scenario that we probably wouldn't even be friends now, but rather he would be like most of my other classmates that I've seen maybe once since graduation. He said that didn't sound right and came up with an entirely different scenario. We rewrote the story of our lives from that point in 4th grade to now, elaborating on various points and creating an alternate world. Obviously it was entirely imaginary, since there's no way of knowing for sure what would have happened, but it was fun nonetheless.

As I look back on "what could have been", I wonder about what will happen. I know that God brought me to this point in this time for a purpose, and I wonder what he's leading me to. But I realize, I'm not so scared about that anymore. I'm finally getting through this thick head the lesson He's trying to teach me in trusting Him and His plan for me. God has brought me to a point where I can look back and see various hurt and heartbreaks, and I know he's teaching me something through them. I'm learning lessons, and though I wish I could learn these lessons without going through the pain, I know that God has a purpose for it. I feel like I'm rambling and being redundant, but it boils down to this: there are some things I'll always regret, and there are some moments I wouldn't trade for the world, but I know that God has a purpose and a plan through all those past moments that have brought me up until now and are leading me forward to the wonderful future He has laid out for me.