My daughter-in-law sent me a WhatsApp message: her husband’s - my son’s - birthday was approaching, and she was planning a special celebration. Did I have any photos of him from the age of 5 - 20 years old? I replied that I would have a look and see what I could find.

There were some packages wrapped up in a plastic bag inside a closet. Could they be photographs? I opened the bag and carefully removed the contents. Inside each parcel were stacks of photographs of family and events from the first forty years of my life. Among them were some of my son that I was able to copy and send to my daughter-in-law. 

Opening each old, dusty envelope, I would take out a handful of pictures and look at each one in turn, noticing the place and the people. There were photos of our home in Sydney, where we lived in the 1960s. It is funny seeing your parents when they were younger than you are now. I still see them with a child’s eye. My own children were adorable when young, but then nearly every parent thinks the same. (But mine really were!) As I shuffled through the pictures, I had a strange sensation of looking at events taking place long ago and at the same time feeling like it was yesterday. 

The one above is unique because it shows three generations - my father is on the left, and in the center are my mother and sister. My grandfather wears a hat and stands on the right side of the picture. That’s me on the horse, at seven years old. I have no recollection of that day, so the photograph serves as the only memory. It was taken on the farm where grandad lived, along with my aunt Ruth and uncle Rowley. 

I wish I could say that looking through these photos brought back warm, fuzzy memories, but that would not be entirely true. As we age we have a tendency to romanticize the past, but some of the pictures brought back feelings from a time that I would rather forget. There were sad and unhappy memories mixed in with the more positive ones. 

Seeing myself with trim body and dark hair, I felt a touch wistful at my current state, but consoled myself that age brings benefits as well as drawbacks. I am happier now than I was then. As I looked at each picture, what surprised me was my reaction to seeing myself when younger. I don’t mean the young boy on the horse, to whom I feel benignly disposed. No, it was that young man in his twenties and thirties that I saw somewhat less charitably. 

He didn’t turn out quite as I had planned. There were some things I didn’t really know then, that would have helped me, and which I found out about later. Having lived a life of many shifts and changes, seeing myself in retrospect was like looking at someone else. My self-critical faculties came to the fore and I remembered the deficiencies and failings of that younger person. 

It’s just as well that I am not God, because the real God has shown me more kindness than I was showing to myself at that moment. This is one of the benefits of letting God into your life - you begin to see things as he sees them. And if God is for me, who am I to disagree? You can’t change the past, but you can learn to see it differently. What blessings were there? Who were the angels who helped you? Remember that you wouldn’t be where you are now without the past. 

Looking back, it seems that there was a plan and a purpose for me, although for a while I was unaware of it, or was reluctant to notice it. God was hidden but not absent. I didn’t deserve God’s love and grace, but he offered it anyway. The spiritual writer and priest Henri Nouwen said that we are “taken, blessed, broken and given.” That helps me to understand myself and my place in the world. As a disciple of Christ, I am aware of my life now having a eucharistic shape and meaning. 

I imagine saying all this to that slim, good looking guy from yesteryear. “Guess what you will be doing in thirty years’ time?” He casts a skeptical eye upon me. “You’re not serious, are you?” In fact, close friends and family saw it before I did. God saw it before all of them.

Father David