The notification bar on my Gmail account was persistent. You’re running out of space. Empty your emails or pay us gazillions for more memory.

I glanced at the email count in my Social category (not the spam and ads, but social media notifications and posts from blogs to which I’ve subscribed). Well over 50,000. Not a one of them ever read.

Welp.

I’d ignored this particular check engine light as long as I could, but now my classes had started back up and were dependent on my Google Drive for student uploads. (This week brought me a round of home-recorded speeches to judge, endearing with their worried-looking stars stammering through F1’s history of racing accidents or the exact nature of eye pigmentation.)

I would certainly not be found paying out the nose to fund San Jose’s AI fetish. It was time to clean out my email.

But Gmail deleted their mass email feature at some point so instead of a quick wipe, I was forced to delete a page of 50 emails at a time – leaving me to watch as the datestamps on the emails scrolled slowly through the weeks, the months, and the years.

2026.

2025.

2024.

2023.

2022.

2021.

2020.

2019.

2018.

Oof. Did God have an ambush for me in that. In seeing the years go by.

I shared some last week about my disappointments. It turns out the process of verrry slowly deleting thirteen years’ worth of 50,000 emails decided to be salt in the wound. A long review of the months and years through which I prayed, sought the Lord, got taken care of, but also watched a great many things slip through my fingers or stay out of reach. A slow trudge through every particular season. I could remember each, the highlights, the tedium, the friends I left behind, the seasons of our nation and the world events, the unanswered prayers, and frankly some really dark times that dominated before I started finding release from depression.

There were a few tears to be had. To be caught by God.

For I could have chosen to focus on the losses and emptiness, and indeed I sensed God leaving space for the processing. Only upon moving to Arkansas did I realize how spiritually oppressive the frozen North had always been for me. The December sunset arriving at 4:30 pm, the cold locking your body down, winter’s relentless gray hiding the sun for three weeks at a time – I don’t know how people do it. The South and its sunshine has seriously brought me a new life.

But I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to figure out that I was in the wrong place.

Also getting to me was my fellow bloggers themselves. It was…haunting to see some of them still fighting the same battles after a decade. And to see them disappear from my emails after their writing seasons ended. Were they okay? Had some found better times, no longer needed an outlet? Had some passed on? I’ve always had an inkling that some of my valued co-writers pour out what they do because they’re lonely, even in their marriages. Not all, but some. Will they ever find breakthrough, God? Will any of us?

God let the tenderness stand for a while. Asked me to invite him in, which I did. It’s always good to let him visit these places and bring light and understanding.

But he also said, Don’t forget my faithfulness in these times, too.

So I remembered.

Long hiking trips in the Montana wilderness, surrounded by otherworldly alpine beauty.

Many years of solid physical health.

The jaw-dropping check from selling my humble townhouse after its post-pandemic appreciation.

Playing on a strong, (mostly) drama-free worship ministry.

The solid jobs with good people.

Spending time with my mom again.

A few close friends who have remained faithful from across the land.

Freedom from depression, at long last.

And, whether I chose to realize it at the time or take advantage of it through deep prayer like I do now, God was there.

For whatever reason, Gmail bugs after you delete too many emails at one time and refuses to be accessible for a while, drawing the process out over three days. But I finally finished, deleting my last Facebook notifications from 2013, and went on a long drive. I asked God to place his cross over my past. Plenty of people have far worse in theirs, and I’ve grown up under the sound of many sermons promising forgiveness and redemption to theirs. Surely I am not beyond that promise?

And then I simply chose to ask God to make it a better future. It’s not too late. Life has not passed me by. And God has a Biblical record of giving people better futures than they had pasts.

Delete your past. Cut off the emails from it. Hit F5 and refresh; see what he has for you today.