The Past Is Not Your Covenant Isaiah 43:18-19 - Personal blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

I am overwhelmed most honestly—not by chaos, but by the collision of excitement and memory, hope and history, desire and discernment.

There is a man before me now, and what I feel is not small.

It is not careless.

It is not rushed.

It is the kind of feeling that wakes parts of me I thought had gone quiet forever.

He inspires me—not with loud promises, but with presence.

With integrity.

With a steadiness that invites me to rise.

I find myself wanting to be better, to live more truthfully, to choose growth over comfort simply because he exists in my world.

And more than that, he encourages God in my life.

Not by force.

Not by expectation.

But by example.

By reminding me that love and faith are not opposing forces, but companions meant to walk together.

Yet my mind…my mind becomes a battlefield. Old fears resurface like ghosts that whisper,

Remember how it hurt before.

Remember the man who changed everything.

The one who taught me how deeply I could love—how fully I could open—but he left.

The man before. The one whose absence carved silence where certainty once lived. The one who showed me what love could feel like and then disappeared, leaving me to carry both the beauty and the ache of it alone.

And now, standing at the edge of something new, my heart remembers before my mind can reason.

I am not afraid of this man.

I am not afraid of love.

I am afraid of loss echoing too loudly inside a heart that finally feels alive again.

Because the longing I once prayed for—the wanting to know him, to truly see him—is unfolding before me now. And the beauty of answered prayers can feel just as overwhelming as unanswered ones.

So I turn to God in the quiet moments when my thoughts run wild. I cling not because I am weak, but because I am human. I ask Him to stand guard over my mind, to soften my fears, to remind me that the past does not get to write the future.

I am learning to release the terror that this connection will mirror the one before it. Learning that not every man is a repetition.

Not every story ends in loss.

Not every deep feeling is a warning.

Some are invitations.

This is not fear of new love. This is reverence for something that matters. This is the careful navigation of a heart that wants this to work—not just romantically, but spiritually, emotionally, truthfully.

I am choosing faith over fear, presence over projection, and trust over old survival instincts.

And if love is a risk, then I will take it with God beside me, my heart open, and my spirit anchored—believing that what is meant for us will not be undone by the man who left or the echoes of yesterday.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it.

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:18-19

A Prayer from Jesus.

My Child,

I see the way your heart trembles—not because it is weak, but because it remembers.

I know the man who came before. I saw the love you poured out, the faith you carried, the way you stayed even when it hurt. I saw him leave. And I held you in the silence he left behind.

Do not think for a moment that I missed any of it.

Now you stand here again—heart open, cautious, alive—wondering if joy will ask the same price twice. You feel excitement rising in your chest and fear trying to speak louder than trust.

But listen to Me.

This man before you now is not a replacement, not a repetition, not a punishment disguised as promise. I do not recycle pain to teach my daughters lessons.

What you feel stirring in you—the desire to grow, to choose better, to walk closer with Me—that is not coincidence.

That is alignment.

I see how he draws you nearer to Me, how your prayers feel more honest, how your spirit feels awake again. Love that leads you closer to Me is never sent to destroy you.

Yes, your mind becomes a battlefield—because old wounds fear being reopened. But I am not asking you to relive the past. I am asking you to trust that I walk ahead of you now.

The man who left does not define your future. He was a chapter, not the covenant. What broke you then will not break you now—because you are no longer who you were.

Stay close to Me in the noise. Bring me every fearful thought, every what-if, every moment your heart races. Let me quiet your mind the way I quiet the sea.

You are not wrong for wanting this to work.

You are not foolish for hoping.

You are not disobedient for feeling deeply.

I am with you—in the excitement, in the uncertainty, in the becoming.

Walk forward, my child.

Not gripping fear, but holding faith. What is meant for you will not require you to shrink, to beg, or to bleed the way you once did.

I have not brought you this far to abandon you now.

Amen.

The Past Is Not Your Covenant Isaiah 43:18-19 - Personal blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

The Past Is Not Your Covenant Isaiah 43:18-19 - Personal blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.