Something occurred to me a while ago, after a family visit. I'm not sure what holiday it was, nor do I recall exactly which family members were present. I just remember that I said something someone did not like, and the next comment I heard was, "you always do that, Christy."

The thing about that, which stopped me cold in my tracks, was that I knew that I did not always do that. In fact, I knew that I used to always do that, but I had not done that in a really long time. The relative, who has known me since before I was born, could only see me the way I was years ago. He and I only see each other a few times a year, if that, so his best understanding of who I am as a person is defined by who I was the last time we saw one another on a daily basis.

He does not know that I have spent hours and hours in prayer, addressing and dealing with aspects of my personality that need to evolve in the light of Christ's transforming presence in my life. My sharp tongue has been trained a bit. My propensity to criticize has been honed, so that I genuinely seek to be constructive most of the time. I'm not 13 anymore. I'm nearly 35. I've changed! I want to scream sometimes.

Over the years, I have worked hard - and prayed hard - to change certain things about myself, but sometimes it doesn't matter how much a person has changed. Her friends and family will only see her as the person they once knew. The person they still think they know.

A few weeks ago, I had a brief conflict with a ministry partner, and when we talked it through soon afterwards, it dawned on me that he was relating to me based on the way I had been back when we had first worked together - with all my failures and relational flaws. Something really minor evoked a major response from him, which exposed to both of us that there were some deep relational ravines that needed to be visited.

I said to him, "I know that in the past I have been very critical, and I have not been easy to approach in times of conflict. But I have grown a lot over the past several years, and I'm not like that anymore. By the same token, I know that you have worked hard to overcome your weaknesses, and I want to give you the benefit of letting you change. Can you let me change?"

It was an "aha!" moment for both of us. He agreed that our past strife (yes, co-laborers in ministry sometimes deal with oil-and-water, type-a-meets-type-b, Mary-and-Martha relationship dynamics) was still coloring our present relationship. We had both been walking on egg shells around each other for a very long time. So we talked and agreed that we were going to start being more conscious of not judging one another based on the past, but rather giving one another the benefit of the doubt.

Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Love endures all things.

It's hard, though. I still expect my mother and father to relate to me as they did when I was growing up. Same with my brothers. Yet we have all grown a lot over the years. So why don't we let one another change?

It's harder than we think it's going to be. I have a friend who became a Christian when she was in her 30's. Before that, she was in an abusive home with an alcoholic father and brother, and an enabling mother. Her name is Patricia, but she always went by "Patty." Patty turned to men in her adolescence, seeking love and affirmation from one guy after another. She was a self-described slut, and people who knew her back then knew her to be loose and wild, a partyer always up for a good time.

But after she became a Christian, she changed a lot. She stopped drinking, smoking, swearing and sleeping around. She got involved with a good church and, as an outward sign of the transformation she had gone through, she started going by "Patricia." Patty was gone. 

Yet whenever she was with her parents and brother, they would not let her forget that she was still the same old "Patty." They refused to call her Patricia, and they would remind her every chance they got that she would never be anyone other than Patty. Loose, wild, sexy Patty.

They would not let her change.

I am careful to never call my friend "Patty." I believe that the woman she is today is a new creation. I believe that the old is gone and the new has come. I did not know her before she was a Christian, so it's not hard for me to accept her as she is now. In fact, it's harder for me to imagine her as a slut! 

But I wonder who in my life needs me to let them change? Are there people whom I still judge based on who they were years ago, instead of giving them the benefit of letting them change?

I was with a group of close girlfriends not too long ago, and at one point someone made a comment about that was meant to be a joke. It was said with affection. But it was something about how I always have something to say - as in, how I am unusually outspoken, and there was a hint of "to a fault" underlying her tone.

I reacted strongly inside, though I did not show it outwardly. I've grown a lot in that area, I thought to myself, defensively. I do not always have something to say! I can hold my tongue! I can be demure! I can be a good girl!! To that friend, I will always be quick-tempered Christy, slow to listen, fast to speak. I don't want to be her. I'm working hard not to be her. I have grown so much. But it occurs to me that, unless she - and others - are intentional about giving me the grace of letting me change, it won't matter how much I grow. To them, I will still be her.

Part of loving with Christ's love, I think, is the willingness to put the past behind us and walk forward. Willingness to not hold who people once were against them, but rather to let them change. It's more important than I ever realized. It requires genuine forgiveness, humility and love. But it's exactly how Christ loves us. 

Can you imagine if God still treated us as though we were enemies of the cross? While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Can you imagine what hell it would be if Christ still treated us as sinners?

Instead, he treats us as sons and daughters. He chooses to forget the past on our behalf, and treat us as the best, redeemed, future glory versions of ourselves.

How about we try doing that too?