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Faith Focus: Layers of history

Like any major modern city, London is constantly changing. Construction projects never end, they simply change locations. Large teams of workers dig deep into the city’s foundation and in doing so, dig into its past.

With each foot they dig, they discover remnants of the past. Literally millions of artifacts have been discovered in this way dating back as far as 11,000 years, including the remains of Londoners buried in long-forgotten cemetaries centuries ago.

National Geographic magazine puts it this way: “Peel back the pavement of a grand old city like London and you can find just about anything, from a first-century Roman fresco to a pair of medieval ice skates—even an elephant’s tooth. As one of Europe’s oldest capitals, London has been continuously lived in and built over by a succession of Romans, Saxons, Normans, Tudors, Georgians, Regency rakes, and Victorians, each of whom added to the pile. As a result the modern city sits atop a rich archaeological layer cake that’s as much as 30 feet high.”

The lives of the residents in Buckner Family Pathways ministries across Texas are just as rich and deep. Their paths to Family Pathways are filled with layers of life experience, each building upon the one before it.

Many of these experiences make my heart break: Difficult childhoods, trying circumstances, abuse, even bouts with life-threatening diseases. Make no mistake, these trials have formed the single parents in the program in unique ways.

But these experiences have also forged a fire within them, a strong determination to transform their lives for their sake and the sake of their children. To that end, residents go through counseling. They participate in classes on parenting, communication and other practical skills. They work hard to build strong relationships with their children. All while also going to work and school, often doing homework into the early hours of the morning.

Today, how is your past affecting you? Is it bringing you down? Or are you letting it fuel you to a better place for tomorrow?

Philippians 4:13 is a favorite verse of many of the residents in Family Pathways. Let it be a reminder today that whatever you have gone through in the past, what you have done or had done to you, God is with you. He is strengthening you today. Feel his power as you go about your day.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. -Philippians 4:13

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